Summary and Analysis of the Technical Features and Development Trend of Chinese Barite Industry in 2015

2016/02/05 bmschem

      Our country has large barite reserves and outputs. Although our industry output claims an ever-growing share of world output, industry technology does not advance with the times.

      I Analysis of technical features of barite industry

      1 Low-level mineral processing technology

      Barite beneficiation method is influenced by ore types, raw ore properties, mine scale, application and other factors. Generally residual ore is easy to select, so gravity concentration should be first selected; Sedimentary-pattern ore and hydrothermal ore associated with sulphide ore and fluorite should adopt flotation method except gravity concentration. We usually use these anion collecting agents in barite flotation: fatty acid salt, petroleum sulfonate, sulfate, etc.

    Many domestic manufacturers still use traditional methods in mineral processing. For example, traditional ore washing equipment cannot select large materials, so the requirements for barite washing operation in this area are relatively high. Someone directly use cylinder ore washer for washing, while some other makes screening and crushing first then washing ore. The later usually adds ore washing water in vibration screening process for preliminary washing. Ore washing can remove most of impurities in soil, but it is useless for coarse barren rocks. Another beneficiation is needed to further improve barite content.

       2 Process level is still not good enough

     The mineral processing flowsheet of residual barite: we usually use gravity concentration to select residual barite, which means we select barite concentrate by ore washing, crushing, screening, jigging and other gravity concentration methods. At present, domestic technology is still at a low level, so the product purification and pricing ability is low thus we can only take price war. This problem is much more obvious in the situation where industry output bottlenecks have occured.

       3 Too many low-end products

      At present, there is a serious imbalance in our product structure of barite industry. Low-end products occupy the vast majority while high value-added products are very few, which lead to the vicious spiral of industry technological development, no pricing power, low profits, less investment in technology research and development and the difficulty to develop. Therefore, in the future we may expand the export proportion of powder products especially high-tech products with high added values. Barite export should not still win by quantity, which is an important direction of our barite technology development.

      II Analysis of technological development of barite industry

      1 Broad prospects of modified technique

     Modified barite superfine powder has good compatibility and affinity with organic high polymer and can uniformly disperse in matrix. It can replace expensive precipitated barium sulfate in single side coated paper, coating, paint and reduce production cost. There is a broad prospect for barite powder modification by using other modifiers. More high technology means and methods are needed to continuously explore and develop.

      2 Policy will support technology development

    In recent years, our country attaches great importance to the protection of mineral resources, mainly relected in the policy regulation of rare earth, fluorite and other resources. All disputes and problems about rare earth continue to appear in recent years. With lessons drawn from another's mistake, we should protect mineral resources especially scarce resources and realize the importance of policy in regulating the market. Without policy guidance, companies tend to be blind. As long as there is a demand form market, they will disorderly and excessively dig, resulting in market confusion and resource waste. Therefore, perfecting barite industry needs policy guidance and support.

      3 The industry will intensify the development of barite production technology

     Our barite products occupy an important position in the world barite market. At present, domestic market demand for barite powder increases constantly. Our country should take advantage of this opportunity—large international market demand to promote our technology innovation of barite industry. We should strengthen the research and development of ultrafine barite powder modification and deep processing, improve product technical content, expand the application and enhance export competitiveness. This is an important means to end this passive situation that our barite industry relys on exporting raw ore at low price.

     Therefore, in order to protect and make full use of our barite resources, Ministry of Land and Resources proposed to control the total mining amount of preponderant barite resources, introduced the regulatory policy of suspending mining license granting and encouraged to turn the developing emphasis of barite industry to technological innovation driving industrial upgrading. All of these further make us devlope from barite major exporter to barite industry power which can produce various high-grade and high value-added products.