Uses of antimony Antimony’s major use (in the form of antimony
trioxide) is as a flame retardant in children’s clothing, toys
and plastics for the construction industry. Antimony is also
used in standard car batteries to extend battery life and to
enhance the efficiency of the production process for PET plastic
containers used for drink bottles. Minor uses of antimony
include ammunition, fireworks, pharmaceuticals, pesticides and
fluorescent light bulbs. A significant new use for antimony is
the development of a new generation of memory devices which will
replace flash drive memory devices presently used in computers,
mobile phones and USB memory devices. These new memory devices
(known as phase-change devices) use an alloy of germanium,
antimony and tellurium (Ge2Sb2Te5) known as “GST”. In June 2010,
Samsung Electronics started mass-producing these phase-change
devices from GST for use in mobile phones and laptops. These
devices are up to 30 times faster than normal flash memory.
Antimony metal prices have r