There are too many possible materials to test them all, or even simulate by computer. Materials scientists theorize what combinations of elements are likely to yield the desired properties, but still there are too many possibilities. One way to narrow the choice is to use economics.

If the goal of developing a material is to change the world or make money, the benefit of the invention must exceed the cost. The benefit comes from the improved characteristics of the material relative to existing alternatives. What the market is willing to pay for an improvement depends on its size. There may be a theoretical maximum for a property, or its historical rate of increase may be used to forecast the likely improvement. Once an approximate willingness to pay for a unit of the candidate invented material is known, this can be compared with its estimated cost.

Financial firms dealing in commodity futures forecast the prices of chemical elements over the likely commercialization time horizon. Only materials using a combination of elements that is cheap enough are commercially promising. Cheap enough means that the improved material must cost less per unit than the market is willing to pay for it. An expensive element can be used, but only in appropriately tiny quantity. The requirement that the bundle of elements cost less than some bound cuts down on the number of combinations that are worth testing. Similarly, the manufacturing method must be cheap enough, so some methods may be ignored.

The basic cost-benefit analysis is a simple idea, though the benefit estimation may be complicated in practice. Probably the companies producing various materials are already taking the potential cost and benefit of an innovation into account in their R&D, but academic materials scientists perhaps not. If the goal is to advance fundamental science and satisfy one’s curiosity, then the cost of the material may not be an issue. But for the world to use the material, it must be cheap enough.

A practical recommendation is for an application-oriented lab to put up a periodic table with the prices of the elements added. A spreadsheet with the prices of commodities can be used to calculate the cost of a candidate combination for a new material. Testing the candidates should proceed in the order of decreasing “profit” (benefit minus cost of the material). This profit is not necessarily the same as commercial profit, because the benefit may include its whole contribution to society, not just the revenue to the producer.