The world's largest tungsten mine in China, the value of billions of European and American covetous, how important is tungsten?
There is no doubt about the importance of mineral resources for a country. Especially in the economic level has great significance. Tungsten, as a kind of non-ferrous metal, is a very important strategic metal.
In 2012, China discovered a large amount of tungsten ore in Dahutang area, Wuning County, Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province, which is the second largest tungsten ore in the world. Tungsten deposit is not only taken seriously by the country, and even a number of European and American countries have shown a strong interest.
So why is tungsten so important as a strategic metal? China's discovery of such a huge tungsten ore, what kind of impact will it have on China? Let's move on to today's topic and explore this mysterious strategic metal.
How important is tungsten?
Everyone says that scarcity is more valuable, but there is nothing wrong with this saying. Tungsten, as an important strategic resource, was called "heavy stone" in ancient times. Scheelite was first discovered by Swedish chemists in the early 1780s and tungstic acid was extracted from it. Up to now, 20 kinds of tungsten minerals have been discovered.
As early as 1750, chemists discovered that tungsten had a special effect on steel, leading to tungsten steel, which became widely used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. With the rapid development of modern industry, tungsten has gradually become the most important alloying element.
As a kind of non-ferrous metal, tungsten steel has the characteristics of high hardness and strong wear resistance, and is widely used in cutting tools and mining tools. In addition, tungsten also has high resistance, low resistance temperature coefficient and other good comprehensive mechanical properties.
Tungsten is not only a non-ferrous metal, but also a rare metal. Although it is widely distributed, its content is generally low. The content of tungsten in the earth's crust is only 0.001%. Only organic solvent extraction method and ion exchange method can be used for separation and extraction.
In addition, tungsten is the refractory metal with the highest melting point, generally higher than 1650℃. Because of its refractory characteristics, tungsten can only appear oxides and liquid oxides at high temperatures above 1000℃.
This refractory metal is the most favored metal in metallurgy, chemical industry, electronics, light source, machinery and other departments. As a high-tech material, tungsten has become an important part of our life. A series of electronic optical materials and special alloys all need to use tungsten with unique properties.
Even in communication technology and electronic computers, aerospace development, aircraft carrier manufacturing can see tungsten figure, but fortunately, China's tungsten mineral resources are rich, tungsten output and export ranked first in the world.
Tungsten is as important as rare earth. Many countries regard tungsten as a strategic resource and pay close attention to it. Some Western countries will even implement tungsten mining on demand, after all, the number of tungsten ore is too little, of course, China is also among them.
