Question

What is the least expensive element?

Answer 1

Hint: Any substance that cannot be decomposed into simpler substances by ordinary chemical processes is referred to as a chemical element. Elements are the fundamental building blocks of all matter. Here, the elements are least expensive in two forms: mass and volume at atmospheric pressure.

Complete Step by Step Answer:
The least expensive elements are the following:
BY MASS:
1. Carbon – Carbon is a type of element which is both least expensive and the most expensive. As carbon black or soot, it is least expensive. On the other hand, in the form of diamonds it is most expensive. While diamond prices vary greatly, a flawless diamond can cost up to \[\$ 65,000\] per gramme.
2. Chlorine – chlorine is produced alongside sodium hydroxide in the chlor alkali process, the relative demand for one product affects the price of the other. When there is a high demand for sodium hydroxide, the price of chlorine can fall to absurdly low levels, even to zero.

BY VOLUME AT ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE:
1. Hydrogen – Hydrogen’s prices produced by distributed steam methane reforming, as predicted by the US Department of Energy's H2A Production Model, assuming a natural gas price of \[3\] USD/MMBtu. The cost of storage and distribution is not included.
2. Oxygen – Oxygen is least expensive in the form of Liquid oxygen.

Note: When there is no publicly available data on the element in its pure form, the price of a compound per mass of element contained is used. This implicitly reduces the value of the compound's other constituents and the cost of element extraction to zero. Individual isotopes and isomers of elements with important radiological properties are listed. The radioisotope price list is not exhaustive.