China has made a major breakthrough in the field of ultra-high-purity graphite
Sinochem News: On September 3rd, at the high-quality utilization achievements release conference of natural graphite held in Hegang City, Heilongjiang Province, it was learned that the research team led by Wang Jionghui of China Minmetals Corporation has overcome the key technology of high-temperature purification of graphite and successfully developed ultra-high-purity graphite products with a purity of over 99.99995%. This major breakthrough achievement will break the current situation where China is constrained by others in key core technologies in the field of high-purity graphite and cannot independently and stably supply ultra-high-purity graphite products. It is of great significance to the development of key raw materials for the country's strategic emerging industries.
Ultra-high purity graphite refers to graphite with a carbon content of over 99.99%. It features excellent self-lubrication, good electrical conductivity, corrosion and high-temperature resistance, as well as superior chemical stability.
At present, the development of China's graphite industry still faces problems such as low utilization rate of mining and selection resources, insufficient utilization of resource value, relatively backward high-quality technology, insufficient deep processing technology, and the urgent need to break through common key technologies. The products and technologies are difficult to meet the development needs of China's strategic emerging industries.
Academician Wu Aixiang of the Chinese Academy of Engineering introduced that the global economy is transforming from "fuel-driven" to "material-driven", and the era of key minerals for new energy has already arrived. Natural crystalline graphite is an important strategic mineral with advantages in China. However, in terms of high-quality application, the core technologies of some high-end products are still monopolized by a few Western countries.
Facing the rather severe resource security situation in our country, China's mining industry should apply new quality productive forces to achieve high-quality development and further move towards green, intelligent and international directions. For graphite resources, we should strive to enhance our technological innovation capabilities, increase the added value of products, and extend the industrial chain, so as to truly transform resource advantages into economic advantages. Wu Aixiang said.
The picture shows the research team led by Wang Jionghui from China Minmetals Corporation studying graphite purification technology
In recent years, Minmetals Graphite has focused on key common problems in the field of natural graphite and carried out technological research and development, achieving a series of results.
At the beginning of this year, the first domestic continuous high-temperature graphite purification furnace of Minmetals Graphite was installed and put into operation. In August, the Minmetals Graphite Purification project achieved a dual-path simultaneous advancement layout of chemical and high-temperature purification of graphite, truly creating a new technological highland in China's graphite purification field. It has become the only "chain leader" enterprise in China's natural graphite field to complete the full industrial chain layout from mining, beneficiation, spherical to high-purity graphite, anode materials and material research and development.
In particular, Wang Jionghui's research team broke through the traditional design of the industry and, in collaboration with leading equipment manufacturing enterprises in the industry, independently developed a continuous graphite purification process and equipment. Through a combination of multiple technologies such as physical and chemical purification, continuous purification at low and high temperatures, and ultra-high vacuum purification, the purity of graphite has been increased from 95% to over 99.99995%. And maintain the stability of product quality. What is particularly commendable is that the reasonable combined process path gives the product a significant advantage in production cost.
At the press conference, Wang Jionghui also released a number of innovative achievements in the Minmetals graphite industry chain to the public, including new technologies such as collaborative mining of graphite resources and source reduction of solid waste, "pillar-machine joint" quality separation and flake protection of graphite, multi-disc high-yield sphericity, preparation of high-capacity anode materials from spherical graphite tailings, and preparation of high-purity graphite. New equipment such as flash flotation machines, high-yield spheroidization complete sets of equipment, and the first domestic continuous high-temperature purification furnace have reached the international leading level in many technologies.
It is understood that since its establishment in 2019, China Minmetals Graphite has initially established a scientific and technological innovation system of "frontier basic research - applied technology research and development - engineering industrialization" and a "swan formation" scientific and technological innovation talent team. It has continuously built scientific research platforms such as the China Minmetals Graphite Technology Research Institute, the Natural Graphite Application Technology Research and Development Center, and the Natural Graphite Application Technology Research and Development Pilot Base And successfully completed the planning of the experimental system covering the graphite material preparation room, anode material preparation room, high-temperature laboratory, sewage treatment chemical workstation, battery testing laboratory and physical laboratory, etc.