The discovery of molybdenum and industrial development
I. Brief history of the discovery of molybdenum
Although molybdenum was discovered in the late 18th century, it was used before it was discovered, such as in the 14th century, when molybdenum-containing steel was used to make sabers in Japan, and in the 16th century, when molybdenite was used as graphite because of its similarity in appearance and properties to lead, galena and graphite, which were collectively referred to as " molybdenite".
In 1754, the Swedish chemist BengtAnderssonQvist examined molybdenite and found that it did not contain lead, so he concluded that molybdenite and galena were not the same substance.
In 1778, the Swedish chemist Scherrer found that nitric acid did not react with graphite, but reacted with molybdenite to obtain a white powder, which was boiled with an alkaline solution and crystallized to produce a salt. He thought that this white powder was a metal oxide, and when it was mixed with charcoal and heated strongly, no metal was obtained, while when it was heated together with sulfur, the original pyromorphite was obtained, thus he thought that pyromorphite should be a mineral of an unknown element.
Inspired by Scherrer, in 1781 the Swede Järm used the "carbon reduction method" to isolate a new metal from this white powder and named the metal "Molybdenum".
Second, the development of the molybdenum industry
In 1891, the French company Schneider was the first to use molybdenum as an alloying element in the production of molybdenum-containing armor plate, which was found to be superior in performance, and the density of molybdenum was only half that of tungsten. Molybdenum gradually replaced tungsten as an alloying element in steel, thus opening the door to industrial applications of molybdenum.
At the end of the 19th century, it was discovered that the addition of molybdenum to steel resulted in molybdenum steel with properties similar to those of tungsten steel of the same composition. 1900, the production process of ferromolybdenum was developed, and the special properties of molybdenum steel to meet the needs of gun steel materials were also discovered, which led to the rapid development of molybdenum steel production in 1910. Since then, molybdenum has become an important component of various structural steels for heat and corrosion resistance, as well as of nonferrous alloys of nickel and chromium.
Industrial production of metallic molybdenum and its widespread use in the electrical industry began around the same time as metallic tungsten (1909), one reason being that powder metallurgy and pressure machining processes for producing these two dense metals had been successfully studied and were fully applicable to production, and another being that the outbreak of World War I led to a dramatic increase in demand for tungsten, while a shortage of ferrotungsten supply accelerated the emergence of molybdenum as a high-hardness and impact-resistant steels. As demand for molybdenum grew, the search for new sources of molybdenum began, culminating in the discovery of the large Climax molybdenum deposit in Colorado, USA, which was mined in 1918.
In 1930, researchers proposed that molybdenum-based high-speed steels must be forged and heat-treated to the proper degree, a discovery that opened up a new market for molybdenum and a new phase of research into molybdenum as an alloying element in steel and other applications. By the end of the 1930s, molybdenum had become a widely used industrial raw material. In 1945, the end of World War II triggered renewed research into the use of molybdenum in civilian industry, and postwar reconstruction opened up a wide market for many applications of molybdenum-containing tool steels. After the 1950s, research on molybdenum focused on the composition and production processes of heat-resistant molybdenum-based alloys. Today, high-purity, compounding and nano-materials are the main directions of research, and the global annual output of molybdenum has risen from 100,000 tons in the late 1970s to 225,000 tons in 2012, with an increasingly wide range of applications for molybdenum in steel, petroleum, chemical, electrical and electronic technology, medicine and agriculture.
Third, China's molybdenum industry development
China only started to build molybdenum smelters in the late 1950s. From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, China's molybdenum metallurgy industry added many new plants and began to develop toward deep processing. In the mid-1980s, China began to introduce a large number of advanced foreign technologies and equipment. After decades of development, the mining capacity of China's molybdenum industry has grown significantly. molybdenum mining capacity was 93,000 tons (physical tons) in 2006, 171,000 tons in 2008, and increased to 313,000 tons in 2013; molybdenum ore beneficiation capacity also increased from 132,000 tons (physical tons) in 2006 to 210,000 tons in 2008, and then to 352,000 tons in 2013. million tons in 2013. China's molybdenum mining capacity is mainly concentrated in Henan, Shaanxi, Liaoning and Jilin, i.e. provinces with concentrated molybdenum resources. The molybdenum mining capacity and beneficiation capacity of the above four provinces account for 71% and 80% of the total national capacity, respectively. It is worth noting that in 2008, China's molybdenum mining capacity utilization rate was 92% and beneficiation capacity utilization rate was 77%, i.e., since 2008, China's molybdenum beneficiation capacity has been in surplus. 2013 China's molybdenum beneficiation capacity utilization rate was roughly calculated and estimated at 78.6%, similar to 2008.
The output of molybdenum concentrate in China has also been increasing with the increase in beneficiation capacity. 45,000 tons of molybdenum concentrate (metal tons) were produced in 2006, 81,000 tons in 2008, and increased to 121,000 tons in 2012. Due to overcapacity, the average price of molybdenum in 2013 was higher than in 2003 but lower than in 2004 and had basically bottomed out, so molybdenum concentrate production slumped to 118,000 tons in 2013.
In order to protect and rationalize the use of our advantageous mineral resources, our government has implemented export quota license management for molybdenum in China since June 18, 2007, and announced the total amount of molybdenum exports every year. In addition, our government has included molybdenum in the directive production plan for rare metals, of which the directive production plan for molybdenum concentrate (containing 45% molybdenum) in 2010 was 185,000 tons. in December 2014, the Ministry of Commerce issued the "015 tungsten, antimony, silver, indium, tin" and other quota quantities and the list of export enterprises, canceling the On May 1, 2015, China abolished the export tariff for molybdenum products. At the same time, China has implemented the reform of molybdenum resource tax clearing and ad valorem taxation since May 1, 2015.
With the development of China's molybdenum industry, the problems in China's molybdenum industry have become increasingly prominent, such as: more small-scale molybdenum enterprises in China, fewer strong enterprises, overcapacity, heavy task of eliminating backward production capacity; exports are mainly primary processed products, backward technology, etc.
In view of the above problems, China's molybdenum industry should adjust its industrial structure on the basis of making full use of the advantages of China's molybdenum resources, and the strong molybdenum mining enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises should increase their strategic cooperation and win-win efforts to gradually form specialized and large-scale molybdenum mining enterprise groups with strong competitiveness in the country and the world, and improve the concentration of the industry. In addition, our government and enterprises should also continue to increase investment in molybdenum ore resource exploration, insist on cultivating independent innovation capability, increase investment in science and technology, and strengthen the triple combination of production, academia and research, while also introducing foreign advanced production equipment and technologies and digesting and innovating these equipment and technologies. On this basis, China's molybdenum enterprises also need to expand the scope of their mineral operations and transform from the development and utilization of a single molybdenum mine to the development and utilization of copper, tungsten and other multi-metals. In addition, China's molybdenum enterprises also need to implement the "going out" strategy and reasonably develop and utilize overseas resources.
