Zinc oxide as a basic chemical raw material has a wide range of applications. With the development of science and technology, many characteristics of zinc oxide have been recognized.
The characteristics and functions of zno have been developed and applied in new scientific fields and industries, and it has become an indispensable basic chemical raw material and new material in the national economic construction. Such as nano-zinc oxide is hailed as a new material of the 21st century.
Zinc oxide is mainly divided into indirect zinc oxide, direct zinc oxide and wet zinc oxide. Mainly used in rubber electronics, pharmaceutical coatings and other industries, especially in the industry of high-grade products such as rubber electronics use the purity of up to 99.7% indirect method zinc oxide; Intermediate products use direct zinc oxide with a purity of more than 95%; Most oil – based coatings use direct method containing lead zinc oxide.
Zinc oxide industry is a fast developing industry in recent 10 years. Ten years ago, there were not many enterprises producing zno in China, and no more than 20 enterprises producing 3000t annually.
With the rapid development of the national economy, the domestic demand for zno is increasing, which promotes the development of zno production enterprises and the expansion of production capacity. According to the incomplete statistics in the last five years, the productivity of indirect zinc oxide has increased from more than 100,000 tons to more than 300,000 tons.
The content of wet-activated zinc oxide is less than 3000t, which has increased to 30,000t. The total production capacity of national scale zno, i.e. direct zno, indirect zno and wet-process zno has reached more than 1 million t/a (the production of low-grade zno is not included in the statistics).
At the same time, it is also an industry with wide distribution, large quantity, complex raw materials and extensive management technology. However, there is a large space for recycling zinc resources.
In the past five years, the production capacity of zno increased rapidly, especially that of indirect zno, mainly benefiting from the rapid development of China’s automobile industry and highway, power grid, household appliances, digital communication and other industries. For example, the radial tire needs to use indirect zinc oxide. In the past three years, the radial tire develops at a rate of 25%~30% per year. In 2005, it has exceeded 50% of the total tire.
At the same time, domestic and international magnetic materials are also developing rapidly. In particular, the production of soft magnetic materials has become the world’s largest production capacity, and China has become the world manufacturing center of magnetic ferrite. In zinc-manganese ferrite, zno is the main raw material. In the manufacture of medium and high grade soft magnetic materials, the high grade zinc oxide of varistor grade must be produced by indirect method.
The development of magnetic material promotes the technical progress of high quality zinc oxide production.
The special function of nano-zinc oxide has once again led to the national research and development of nano-zinc oxide. The research of functional zinc oxide and nanometer zinc oxide has promoted the development and technical progress of zinc oxide industry after all.
With the increasing price of zinc ingots, the prospects of reactive zinc oxide are better under the target of how to use resources, save resources and reduce costs. In the past few years, the development of hydrometallurgy zinc oxide has been greatly improved, and it is believed that this development trend will continue for a long time.