The picture shows antimony metal
Last year, China used rare earth to counterattack the trade sanctions of the United States, which directly caused heavy losses to American science and technology enterprises. Now another resource in China is hot again. Is it more precious and rare than rare earth? Even the United States has to queue up to buy it? It is antimony metal. You know, the reserves of this metal resource on the earth are very small, the United States is also very scarce, and it is heavily dependent on imports, while China's production and reserves are far ahead of the world. It seems that the initiative is now in the hands of China.
The picture shows stibnite
China manages four kinds of resources as strategic resources, namely rare earth, tungsten, tin and antimony. Among them, antimony is the most scarce resource. Although it is added in a small amount in various industrial products, it is an essential material. Therefore, it is also known as industrial monosodium glutamate. This metal is widely used in flame retardants, batteries, lead alloys, glass, ceramics and chemicals, Even in the industrial and military fields such as catalytic catalysts, this metal has very interesting physical properties. Ordinary metals expand and contract with heat, but it shrinks and expands with heat and cold. Moreover, this metal is very different from non-ferrous metals such as aluminum and copper in recyclability. Once it is used in industrial products, it can hardly be recycled, At the current technical level, only some lead antimony alloy grid plates in batteries can be recovered, and the recovery amount is very small. China's advantage in this respect is that China has the highest reserves of antimony metal in the world. Antimony metal is mainly distributed in 111 mining areas in 18 provinces and regions, with an accumulated proven reserves of 3.434 million tons, including industrial reserves of 1.039 million tons, accounting for 37.1%. Based on this data, China has the highest reserves of this metal in the world, Antimony metal reserves are mainly concentrated in the Central South region, which accounts for about 68.7% of the national reserves, followed by the southwest region, followed by the northwest region, while East and North China are the least.
The picture shows stibnite
Compared with other countries, China's antimony deposits mainly have these advantages. First, they are rich in reserves, many deposits and larger scale. China monopolizes 15 of the 54 large antimony deposits in the world, which makes China the world's first in antimony metal production and reserves. The second advantage is that the metallogenic environment of antimony deposits is superior and has the metallogenic conditions of large and super large antimony deposits, Antimony deposits in the world are mainly distributed in three zones around the world, namely the circum Pacific tectonic metallogenic belt, the Mediterranean tectonic metallogenic belt and the Central Asian Tianshan tectonic metallogenic belt. China happens to be distributed in these three ore belts, and the circum Pacific tectonic metallogenic belt also accounts for more than 77% of antimony reserves. The deposits in Yunnan, Guizhou and Hunan are just located in this ore belt, and there are some large and even super large deposits with an output of more than 100000 tons. In fact, the distribution of deposits in China is relatively concentrated, which is more conducive to large-scale mining in China. Moreover, the reserve composition of antimony deposits in China is mainly single antimony sulfide deposits, Accounting for 67% of China's total reserves, the ore has simple composition and higher grade. It is precisely because of China's great advantages in this field. In the Sino US trade friction in 2018, the United States also removed this metal from the tax increase list, which actually proves that the United States is dependent on China's Antimony, so it dare not increase taxes.
The picture shows antimony ore
But at the same time, it should be pointed out that although China has the largest reserves in the world, even China's reserves can only reach the five-year guarantee. Therefore, in addition to strictly controlling the mining, processing and export of this foundation, China also needs to further develop the recovery technology of antimony metal. If we do not pay attention to this control, Under the impact of low-cost raw materials of the same foreign products, the support capacity of antimony resources will continue to decline, which will have an adverse impact on China's national strategic development.