Quartz is an important industrial mineral raw material and a non-chemical dangerous product. It is widely used in glass, casting, ceramics and refractories, smelting ferrosilicon, metallurgical flux, metallurgy, construction, chemical industry, plastics, rubber, abrasives and other industries. The unique physical and chemical properties of quartz make it play an important role in aviation, aerospace, electronics, machinery and today's rapidly developing IT industry. In particular, its internal molecular chain structure, crystal shape and lattice change law make it have high temperature resistance, low thermal expansion coefficient, high insulation, corrosion resistance, piezoelectric effect, resonance effect and its unique optical characteristics, It plays an increasingly important role in many high-tech products.
China is rich in quartz mineral resources, including quartzite, quartz sandstone, natural quartz sand, vein quartz (crystal), etc. Among the types of quartz minerals, vein quartz has the best quality, its color is pure white, its oil luster, and its purity is very high. The mineral composition is basically quartz, and its silicon dioxide content reaches more than 99%, but it only accounts for 0.93% of China's quartz mineral resources. On the whole, although quartz mineral resources in China are widely distributed and the total amount is large, the scale of quartz minerals that can really be used as raw materials for high-purity quartz glass is small.
Quartz sand used by countries all over the world, ordinary quartz sand is generally produced and used by themselves; Due to uneven distribution of high-quality sand resources and high prices, most countries have a certain amount of imports and exports in addition to their own production and use. In China's quartz sand consumption structure, metallurgical industry and refractory materials are the main consumers in the quartz stone market at present, accounting for about 62%, and the total consumption of other industrial fields accounts for about 38% of the whole market. At present, the total annual consumption of quartz sand in China is about 34-35 million tons, of which the middle and low-grade quartz sand and the middle and high-grade quartz sand account for about 50% respectively.
The output of quartz tube and its raw material quartz sand in Donghai County, Jiangsu Province accounts for more than 70% of the national output. The quartz product industry has obvious regional characteristics. One of the most representative vein quartz deposits in China is the Donghai vein quartz deposit in Jiangsu Province. It is proved that within hundreds of square kilometers, its crystal reserves are up to several million tons, and the silica content of white crystal is up to 99.999%, making Donghai, Jiangsu the main production area of high-purity quartz raw materials.
1. More than half of the demand for quartz downstream semiconductor optical communication, with the global market scale reaching 10 billion.
According to the report of the quartz professional committee of China Architectural Glass and Industrial Glass Association, the global quartz glass market in 2017 exceeded 20 billion yuan, of which the high-end sector accounted for a significant proportion. The semiconductor market scale was about 10.5 billion yuan, accounting for about 45.36% of the whole quartz market. The photovoltaic industry accounted for about 23.76%, optical communication accounted for 16.20%, optical industry accounted for 9.50%, and light source industry accounted for 5.18%. Among them, the market scale of optical communication semiconductor has reached 61.56%, which is the most important downstream application field of quartz materials.
2. Domestic quartz demand structure is adjusted to high-end fields such as optical fiber semiconductor.
In recent years, with the rapid development of China's electronic information industry and electric light source industry, and the explosive growth of photovoltaic industry, the total industrial output value of China's quartz products industry has maintained a rapid growth.
According to the statistical yearbook of China's electronic information industry, the output of domestic semiconductor material quartz products and piezoelectric quartz crystal components in the electronic information industry has shown an overall upward trend in recent years. In 2017, the output of domestic semiconductor quartz products was 535200 tons, and there were 33.368 billion piezoelectric quartz crystal components, both reaching the peak over the years. In 2018, it showed an overall upward trend.
3. Supply and demand of quartz sandstone ore in Inner Mongolia.
Inner Mongolia is located in the border, with the most abundant building materials and non-metallic mineral resources. There are more than 80 kinds of building materials and non-metallic minerals with proven reserves in the country, including 36 kinds in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and more than 200 places of origin, 23 of which are among the top 10 in the country, with good geographical location and mining conditions.
The mining area is located in Etuoke Banner of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region at the junction of Ningxia, Mongolia and Shaanxi. The government has always strongly supported the development of local economy, advocated the transformation of resource advantages into economic advantages as soon as possible, and created a good atmosphere for mining development. Many ferrosilicon plants have been built in Qipanjing Town, Etuoke Banner and its surrounding areas, among which Ordos Xijin Mining and Metallurgy Co., Ltd., the largest ferrosilicon producer in China, is located in Qipanjing Town, Etuoke Banner. The quartz sandstone mine of Erdos Xijin Mining and Metallurgy Co., Ltd. is adjacent to this mine. On the macro level, its ore bed trend is connected. The mineral resources and mineral products are basically the same, and they belong to the same industry. On the whole, the regional economic effect is good. Mine development and deep processing of products have become the leader of regional economic growth, and the geological environment has a large capacity.
With the accelerated pace of urbanization in China, the in-depth implementation of the national western development strategy, and the development of cement, steel and chemical industries, the demand for quartz sandstone, as a metallurgical flux, construction cement, railway slag and other industrial raw materials, will further increase.
Summary
China’s silicone mines like quratz are facing a large increasing of demands from different industries and it has several good places which could produce high-quality quartz.
