The purity of Hegang natural graphite reaches a new high, 99.99995%

Thirteen years ago, the state determined the third batch of resource-depleted cities, and Hegang City in Heilongjiang Province was on the list. This shows that the development of mineral resources in Hegang has entered the late stage, and the cumulative reserves have reached more than 70% of the recoverable reserves.

Finding a follow-up industry and recreating a hot industry has become a critical issue for Hegang City. As a clean energy and new energy, graphite provides a solution to this problem.

On September 3, the press conference on the innovative achievements of high-quality utilization of natural graphite and the establishment of Heilongjiang Graphite Purification and Processing Center was held in Hegang City, Heilongjiang Province. Nearly 300 academicians and experts from all over the country and industry insiders from upstream and downstream of the industrial chain attended the conference to discuss the development path of high-quality utilization of the natural graphite industry.

According to Gao Jian, deputy mayor of Hegang City, Hegang has rich reserves of graphite mineral resources, with proven ore reaching 2.135 billion tons. However, "for a long time, the industry's value chain has been at the middle and low end, enterprises are small and scattered, and resource utilization needs to be improved, especially in terms of high-quality utilization," said Wu Aixiang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

At the meeting, Wang Jionghui, Chairman of China Minmetals Graphite Industry Co., Ltd., announced that the company's scientific research team has mastered the key technology of high-temperature purification of graphite and successfully developed an ultra-high purity natural graphite product with a purity of 99.99995%.

In addition, Minmetals Graphite also announced a number of innovative achievements in the natural graphite industry chain: new technologies such as coordinated mining of graphite resources and reduction of solid waste emissions at the source, graphite "column-machine combination" quality sorting and flake protection, multi-disc high-yield spheroidization, preparation of high-capacity negative electrode materials from spherical graphite tailings, and preparation of high-purity graphite, as well as new equipment such as flash flotation machines, high-yield spheroidization equipment sets, and the first domestic continuous high-temperature purification furnace.

Wang Jionghui introduces the innovative achievements of Hegang graphite industry. Photo provided by Minmetals Graphite

What is the importance of graphite resources? In 2016, crystalline graphite, as a type of non-metallic mineral, was included in the list of strategic minerals by the Ministry of Land and Resources. This means that the safe supply of graphite resources is, to a certain extent, related to national economic security, national defense security and the development of strategic emerging industries.

From the perspective of usage, graphite is widely used in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors in the nuclear industry and pencil leads in daily life due to its high temperature resistance, conductivity, lubricity and other characteristics. In the field of new energy, the market for graphite is also continuously expanding. For example, for lithium-ion batteries used in new energy vehicles, graphite is a necessary negative electrode material.

It was not until 2019 that Hegang's graphite industry entered the "right track".

This year, China Minmetals, together with China First Heavy Industries, China Resources Group and provincial, municipal and county investment entities, jointly established China Minmetals Group Graphite Industry Co., Ltd.

Before China Minmetals entered the market, the graphite mining site, Yunshan in Luobei County, had its complete graphite ore body divided into different mining rights and mining areas. The disadvantages of decentralized management were obvious. The level of mining equipment was low, and the extensive mining method could not guarantee safety and environmental protection; the utilization efficiency of graphite resources was low, and the added value of products was low.

After the cooperation between the central government and local governments, the original five mining rights were merged into one, and mining has developed in the direction of large-scale development, intensive utilization, safe production, and good order. The integrated Yunshan graphite mine has a resource volume of more than 1.5 billion tons, making it the world's largest single crystalline graphite mine in terms of resource reserves, and the Luobei Graphite Industrial Park has become the largest graphite new material industry cluster in China.

The transformation of Hegang's resource advantages into economic advantages has begun to show results, and the city's industrial transformation has also found a viable path.

The purification workshop in Hegang Graphite High-Quality Utilization Park Photo by Zhou Yufan

Empowering resource advantages with technology is the further development direction of Minmetals Graphite.

At the beginning of its construction, this graphite production base built a networking system, which almost achieved full digitalization and intelligence from ore layer measurement and directional blasting in the mining stage to subsequent mineral processing and deep processing.

Safety in production is better guaranteed. For example, slope detection equipment uses laser radar to obtain high-precision terrain data, providing data for slope stability analysis.

Productivity has also been further improved. Minmetals Graphite Mine is continuously promoting less-manned and green production, such as the use of electric mining trucks throughout the mine area and the experimental use of unmanned excavators. According to information provided by relevant persons in charge of Minmetals Graphite, this graphite mine with an annual production capacity of 6 million tons only needs less than 20 technicians to achieve 24-hour high-quality mining in the open-pit mine.

Data dispatch center in Hegang Graphite High-Quality Utilization Park Photo provided by Minmetals Graphite