Beryllium
Statistics and Information
Beryllium (Be) is one of the lightest of all metals and has one of the highest melting points of any light metal. Beryllium metal is used principally in aerospace and defense applications because of its stiffness, light weight, and dimensional stability over a wide temperature range. Beryllium-copper alloys are used in a wide variety of applications because of their electrical and thermal conductivity, high strength and hardness, good corrosion and fatigue resistance, and nonmagnetic properties. Beryllium oxide is an excellent heat conductor, with high strength and hardness, and acts as an electrical insulator in some applications. The United States, one of only three countries that process beryllium ores and concentrates into beryllium products, supplies most of the rest of the world with these products.