What are passports made of?
Passports take paper, ink, polycarbonate, microchip, adhesive and sewing thread directly. Trace them back and you pass 60 made things on the way to 24 raw materials.
How passports are made See it on the map
What goes straight in
From the ground: 24 raw materials
- Water through sewing thread
- Kaolin through paper
- Limestone through paper
- Timber through paper, wood pulp
- Soybeans through ink, vegetable oil
- Rapeseed through ink, vegetable oil
- Clay through ink, vegetable oil
- Crude oil through ink, carbon black
- Air through ink, carbon black
- Titanium ore through ink, titanium dioxide
- Iron ore through ink, pigment
- Sulfur through ink, pigment
- Corn through ink, ethanol
- Sugarcane through ink, ethanol
- Rock salt through polycarbonate, chlorine
- Quartz through microchip, silicon wafer
- Tin ore through microchip, tin
- Copper ore through microchip, copper
- Coal through microchip, aluminum
- Gold ore through microchip, gold
- Natural gas through ink, ethanol, ethylene
- Bauxite through microchip, aluminum, alumina
- Zinc ore through microchip, gold, zinc
- Sugar beet through ink, ethanol, baker's yeast, molasses
Made along the way: 54 things
Metals 7
Chemicals and fuels 31
Carbon blackTitanium dioxidePigmentEthanolPhenolPropyleneAcetoneCaustic sodaChlorineOxygen gasParaffin waxQuicklimeHydrogen peroxideHexaneFormaldehydeSulfuric acidEthyleneBenzeneNaphthaArgonPetroleum cokeAmmoniaMethanolNitric acidHydrogenTolueneHydrochloric acidPara-xyleneEthylene glycolCharcoalCarbon dioxide