Tungsten Is One Of The Materials That Cannot Be Replaced By Modern Industrial Society

Jan 15, 2020

Tungsten, known as industrial monosodium glutamate, is a very important and rare mineral resource. Tungsten and tungsten products with high melting point, high density, high hardness, widely used. Since the end of the 19th century, when tungsten was first used to produce alloy steel and hardened steel, more than 20 kinds of tungsten products have been produced, ranging from primary products to deep processed products, including drills, cutting tools, alloys, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, food and electronic equipment. Tungsten is one of the materials that cannot be replaced by modern industrial society. The healthy development of tungsten industry directly affects the development of manufacturing and national economy and military security. Nowadays, many countries in the world attach great importance to the exploration and development of tungsten and store tungsten as a strategic resource.

Tungsten products mainly include tungsten concentrate raw materials and ammonium partungstate, tungsten oxide, tungsten powder, cemented carbide, tungsten strip, tungsten wire and tungsten iron, etc., is widely used in automotive, machinery, mining, petroleum, building materials, electronics, military and other fields. Because of its irreplaceable role in many fields, tungsten has been listed as an important strategic metal in the world. More importantly, China is the largest source of tungsten, with reserves of about 1.9 million tons, accounting for 58% of the world's total.

The industrial chain of tungsten industry is relatively long, covering upstream mining (scheelite, wolframite, black and white mixed tungsten ore)- upstream dressing (tungsten concentrate)- mid-stream smelting (APT, tungsten oxide, tungsten powder)- downstream (tungsten carbide)- deep processing (cemented carbide)- terminal consumption (mainly concentrated in the machinery industry, metallurgy industry, military industry, etc.). Due to the scarcity of tungsten resources, smelting and pretreating overcapacity and deep processing of high technical threshold, tungsten industry value chain of distribution characteristics of "two high, intermediate low" : high-end carbide tungsten acquisition and downstream (especially in high precision, high performance, cutting tool) higher levels of profit, cemented carbide and tungsten smelting, milling, perfection of material profit level is relatively low.

Tungsten is a kind of strategic metal with strong scarcity. In order to protect China's tungsten resources, improve the industry concentration, and improve China's voice in the international mining market, the country has formulated sound industrial policies in terms of industry access, total production control, export quota, tax and other aspects.

Cemented carbide is the biggest consumption area of tungsten, with the global average consumption accounting for 60% of the total consumption of tungsten. Carbide products mainly for tungsten carbide hard phase, cobalt as bonding phase, the ball mill, spray granulating, pressing, sintering system, has the very high hardness, strength, abrasion resistance and corrosion resistance, carbide so-called "teeth" industry, mainly used for cutting tools, stamping tools, moulds, mining and road construction machinery and other fields. Benefited from the recent real estate and infrastructure investment pull, tungsten downstream demand maintained steady growth.

There are big differences between China and developed countries. In European tungsten products, the cemented carbide with higher added value accounts for more than 70% of all tungsten products, while China's cemented carbide accounts for less than 50%. A large number of products are concentrated in the primary tungsten products with lower profit margin and added value, resulting in the overall profit margin of China's tungsten industry is relatively thin, which further leads to the cheap loss of a large amount of tungsten resources. Therefore, the downstream development of the industry should focus on cemented carbide.

Cemented carbide is known as "the tooth of industry". Nanocrystalline cemented carbide is a new type of east-west material developed in recent years. It is based on nanocrystalline WC powder. Under the condition of adding appropriate binder and grain growth inhibitor, cemented carbide material with high hardness, high wear resistance and high tolerance can be produced.

Tungsten carbide is a new functional material with high hardness, high thermal stability and high wear resistance. WC powder and bonding metal (Co, Ni, Fe, fe-ni, ni-co, fe-ni-co, etc. With the development of ultrafine cemented carbide, it is widely used in the precision machining of hard materials, the production of printed circuit board micro drill, dot matrix printer printing needles and precision mold.

Given a series of good properties of high density tungsten alloy, has been widely used in aerospace, navigation gyroscope, balance blocks, shock absorber, etc.), an important part in military industry and penetration (, nuclear submarines, armor materials, etc.), together has also been widely used in machinery, electronics, appearance and even medical, sporting goods and other civilian industry category.

China has a hundred years of tungsten development history, formed a relatively intact industrial system. China has the world's largest reserves of tungsten resources, but the unreasonable use of resources and the problems exposed in the development of tungsten industry have severely affected the healthy and orderly development of tungsten industry. China's tungsten industry should adhere to the concept of sustainable development, strengthen the handling of legislation, establish a scientific and reasonable handling system and operation mechanism, further optimize the industrial structure, improve the technological content and added value of