Exploring the global trade networks of the tungsten supply chain: Insights into the physical and monetary mismatch among countries

摘要: International trade is essential to bridge the imbalance between supply and demand of materials along with different nations effectively, especially for critical raw materials such as tungsten that are highly geographically unequally distributed. However, the international trade flows and their complex networks that link those participating nations have remained largely unexplored, which leads to inexplicable concerns for materials' criticality and their supply risks. By integrating the material flow analysis and the complex network analysis, this study traces the global trade flows of tungsten in various forms ranging from primary products to scrap among 223 countries and regions annually from 2000 to 2018 and explores the evolution of participating countries' role involved in international trade networks from both physical and monetary perspectives. We found that (1) there are ∼2673 thousand metric tons of tungsten …