Chinese scientists have made a major breakthrough in the field of ultra-high purity graphite

On September 3, exciting news came from the release conference on the high-quality utilization achievements of natural graphite held in Hegang City, Heilongjiang Province, China. The scientific research team of Wang Jionghui of China Minmetals Corporation successfully conquered the key technology of graphite high-temperature purification and developed ultra-high purity graphite products with a purity of over 99.99995%. This marks that China's ultra-high purity graphite products have reached the international leading level.

Ultra-high purity graphite refers to graphite with a carbon content of more than 99.99%. It has many characteristics such as good self-lubrication, good electrical conductivity, corrosion resistance and high temperature resistance, and excellent chemical stability. It is an indispensable key raw material for strategic emerging industries such as new energy, new materials, electronic information, and aerospace. It is known as "the strategic resource supporting the development of high-tech in the 21st century". Previously, China mainly relied on imports for ultra-high purity graphite raw materials.

Wang Jionghui's scientific research team focuses on the key common problems in the field of natural graphite, breaks through the traditional industry design, and jointly with leading equipment manufacturing enterprises in the industry, independently develops and develops continuous graphite purification processes and equipment. Through a combination of physical and chemical purification, continuous purification at low and high temperatures, and ultra-high vacuum purification, the purity of graphite is greatly increased from 95% to over 99.99995%, and the product quality remains stable. The reasonable combined process path also gives the product a significant advantage in production cost.

China Minmetals owns the world's larger Yunshan graphite mine in Hegang and has built a graphite concentrator with an annual output of 200,000 tons and a deep processing industrial chain. In the application of ultra-high purity graphite products, Wang Jionghui's team is accelerating the research and development of high-end anode materials, nuclear-grade graphite, and carbon-based material products such as graphite for semiconductors. This major breakthrough of China in the field of ultra-high purity graphite will break the current situation of being restricted by others in key core technologies and unable to supply ultra-high purity graphite products stably on its own. It will play an important role in the stable supply of high-end carbon-based materials for China's strategic emerging industries and strongly promote the rapid development and upgrading of China's related industries.