A glorious decade of non-ferrous industry - Molybdenum
Molybdenum is an important industrial raw material, mainly used in the production of alloy steel, stainless steel, tool steel and high-speed steel. Nowadays, molybdenum also plays an important role in high-temperature resistant materials, especially in the field of rocket and aircraft engines. Since the 18th Party Congress, China's molybdenum industry has made great progress. In the past 10 years, China has achieved remarkable results in strategic mineral exploration, and the proven reserves of molybdenum ore have continued to grow, and the consumption of molybdenum has risen as the national economy develops. The development of the molybdenum industry has made a positive contribution to China's national economic development.
Strategic rare metals - molybdenum
Molybdenum is a rare, high-melting metal that is used as an alloying additive in about 80% of the steel industry and is a high-quality alloying element. Molybdenum has many excellent physical and chemical properties, some of which are difficult to replace with other metals. The addition of molybdenum to alloy steels can improve elastic limits, corrosion resistance and the maintenance of permanent magnetism. By adding molybdenum, chromium, nickel and vanadium, structural alloy steels (such as bearings, cylinders, gears, pressure vessels and bolts) can be produced; by adding molybdenum, chromium, tungsten, cobalt and vanadium, tool and die steels (such as taps, scissors, milling cutters and extrusion dies) can be produced; by adding molybdenum, nickel and chromium, stainless and heat-resistant steels (such as construction materials, gas turbines, etc.) can be produced. In addition, the differential gears and other gears and bearings used in automobile manufacturing mainly use alloy steel containing molybdenum; exhaust systems mainly use stainless steel containing molybdenum; engine valve parts mainly use alloy steel containing molybdenum, nickel, chromium and vanadium; electric motors, lighting products also need to use molybdenum and other metals; petrochemical equipment widely used in stainless steel containing molybdenum, nickel and chromium made of reaction vessels, pipelines, etc. Pure molybdenum wire is used in high-temperature electric furnaces and EDM and wire-cutting processing; molybdenum flakes are used to make radio equipment and X-ray equipment.
The application of molybdenum in other alloy fields and chemical fields is also expanding. For example, molybdenum disulfide lubricants are widely used for lubrication of various types of machinery, and molybdenum metal is gradually used in nuclear power and new energy fields. Modern high, precise and sophisticated equipment has higher requirements for materials, such as molybdenum and tungsten, chromium and vanadium alloys used in the manufacture of alloy components and parts for warships, rockets and satellites.
In short, the application of molybdenum permeates all areas of industry and has broad development prospects.
Growing industry scale
Rising status
According to incomplete statistics from the Molybdenum Branch of China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, in 2021, China's molybdenum ore processing capacity reached 360,000 tons/day, and molybdenum oxide and ferromolybdenum roasting capacity reached 300,000 tons/year; China's molybdenum concentrate output reached 227,500 tons, up 11.7% year-on-year, accounting for about 37% of global molybdenum output; China's molybdenum consumption was 114,000 tons (molybdenum metal), up 7.59% year-on-year, accounting for about This represents 42.8% of global molybdenum consumption. The "China factor" occupies a pivotal position in the international market.
The industrial structure is becoming more and more reasonable
The initial formation of an intensive industrial layout
In terms of industrial layout, over the past 10 years, the molybdenum industry has optimized its structure and significantly increased its industrial concentration through a series of policies such as supply-side structural reform, scientific and technological innovation, technological progress, industrial structure upgrading and comprehensive utilization of resources. Among them, molybdenum mining enterprises have gradually shrunk from more than 300 10 years ago to 30 at present, mainly concentrated in seven provinces and regions, including Henan, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Jiangxi and Hebei, and the output of molybdenum concentrate in the above provinces and regions accounts for 93% of the total output of molybdenum concentrate in the country.
In terms of downstream industrial distribution, the production of molybdenum chemical products such as ammonium molybdate is mainly concentrated in Shaanxi, Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan and Sichuan provinces. Among them, the production capacity of molybdenum chemical products in Shaanxi and Jiangsu accounts for about 70% of the total national production capacity. Domestic ammonium molybdate manufacturers have shrunk from nearly 50 at the peak to 10 at present, and there is a trend of further concentration. The production of ferromolybdenum, molybdenum powder and their products is mainly concentrated in Shaanxi, Henan and Liaoning provinces, which is also concentrated.
Steady development of process equipment towards intelligence and high-end
Over the past 10 years, China's molybdenum industry has continued to make new progress in equipment technology. In the development of mining equipment and automation, molybdenum industry enterprises have gradually realized large-scale, automated and intelligent equipment. 2016, China Mobile Henan, together with Huawei, Henan Yuexiu Intelligent Machinery Co., Ltd. and Luo Molybdenum Group, developed the first unmanned mining application technology in China, applying 5G technology to mine production, applying unmanned mining equipment in a 5G environment and creating unmanned mines, which effectively cost saving, while significantly improving the security capacity of mine safety production. In addition, under unmanned mine conditions, the driving speed of production vehicles in the mine can be increased to 35 km per hour, significantly improving production efficiency. Luoyang Luanchuan Molybdenum Co., Ltd. has become the first mine in China to apply unmanned mining equipment.
In molybdenum metal processing and application research and development, the new technology of continuous rolling method for molybdenum and its alloy open billet processing gradually replaces the traditional rotary forging method, which not only improves production efficiency, but more importantly, overcomes the defects of the rotary forging open billet process itself, so that the internal organization of molybdenum and its alloy material is uniform and its performance is improved, which lays a good foundation for the production of molybdenum and its alloy rods, bars and wires. The key preparation technology and application project of high-quality molybdenum powder for high-end electronic products jointly completed by Golden Molybdenum and Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology has successfully prepared molybdenum powder for high-end electronic semiconductor field and developed large-size targets for high-end molybdenum sputtering, with some products making up for domestic gaps and the overall technology reaching international leading level.
Scientific and technological innovation drives the industry to achieve high-quality development
Over the past 10 years, enterprises in the molybdenum industry have paid great attention to scientific and technological innovation and development, focusing on the overall situation, grasping the general trend, and always insisting on demand-driven and application-oriented. Leading enterprises in the industry have taken improving technological content, extending the industrial value chain, increasing added value and enhancing core competitiveness as the main direction and breakthrough of scientific and technological innovation, aiming at the frontier of industry science and technology, focusing on conquering a number of key core technologies and driving high-quality development of enterprises with scientific and technological innovation.
In terms of localization of high-end molybdenum sputtering targets, Golden Molybdenum Group has developed the world's largest high-definition flexible display molybdenum sputtering targets, realized the localization of high-end molybdenum sputtering targets, successfully pushed the "JDC" 6th generation molybdenum targets to the world's most advanced OLED production line, and leaped to become the world's largest molybdenum target supplier; in copper and molybdenum In the research and industrialization of key technology for efficient comprehensive utilization of secondary resources, we have solved the problem of separation of micro-fine grained copper-molybdenum ore and the world-wide problem that it cannot be recovered; the key preparation technology of molybdenum has broken through the bottleneck of ultra-fine molybdenum disulfide production technology and nano-layered molybdenum disulfide preparation, solved the problems of difficult removal of molybdenum concentrate impurities and low production efficiency of ultra-fine powder, and formed the core technology with completely independent intellectual property rights, and the main technology The main technology has reached the international leading level.
In terms of energy-saving technology, Luoyang Molybdenum has realized tailing wastewater recycling and power generation and molybdenum smelting without carbon roasting through technical research, which is expected to completely say goodbye to the traditional drying process of fuel heating and help the industry develop in a low-carbon way. It has designed and built the world's first industrial demonstration unit for ammonia recovery of molybdenum chemical tail gas, which fundamentally solves the problem of ammonia pollution in production, breaks the monopoly of foreign technology and fills the gap in China. In addition, through more than 10 years of research and development, Luo Molybdenum Group has successfully recovered very low-grade wolfram, copper, iron, rhenium, sulfur and other associated resources from molybdenum tailings, effectively implementing innovative development and green development.
More abundant refined and deep-processed products
Over the past 10 years, the quality of China's molybdenum products has improved greatly, and the variety of molybdenum products has become increasingly abundant. A variety of molybdenum and molybdenum alloys have been independently researched and developed in China, including pure dense molybdenum, fine-grained and ultra-fine-grained molybdenum powder, ultra-high-purity molybdenum powder, high-temperature dense molybdenum, various molybdenum compounds, molybdenum alloys alloyed with trace elements, rare-earth molybdenum, tungsten-molybdenum alloys, molybdenum expansion alloys, molybdenum single crystals, etc., which can fully meet the needs of various domestic fields. With the rapid development of China's industry and science and technology, molybdenum and its compounds and alloys, in addition to being used in the field of national defense science and technology, have also begun to shift in large numbers to the civilian field, thus promoting the research and development of molybdenum and its compounds and alloys to deepen continuously.
10 years of hard work and 10 years of fruitful achievements. As we welcome the victory of the 20th Party Congress, China's molybdenum industry will continue to hold high the great banner of Xi Jinping's thought of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, march forward with determination, forge ahead, continuously improve the quality of development, enhance market competitiveness and international influence, and make unremitting efforts to promote China's molybdenum industry from big to strong!
