Rare earth is a general term for the lanthanides and a total of 17 metal elements such as scandium and yttrium in the periodic table, and is a very important resource with high application value. According to statistics, there are a total of 250 rare earth minerals in nature.
In addition to rare earths, a resource more precious than rare earths has been found in our country and that is beryllium. We are familiar with the beryl and cat’s eye stone, is beryllium aluminum silicate evolved under certain natural conditions, and cat’s eye stone is formed under the metal beryllium action.
Beryllium (Beryllium) is a grayish-white alkaline earth metal with the chemical element symbol Be and an atomic number of 4. Beryllium has a much higher hardness than other metals in its family, unlike calcium, strontium, etc., which can be cut by a sharp edge. Beryllium can be soluble in both acid and alkali, and is an amphoteric metal, which is mainly used to prepare alloys, and has the reputation of “super metal”, “cutting-edge metal” and “space metal”.
Nowadays, beryllium, as a new material, is increasingly valued by various industries, and is an indispensable and valuable metal material in atomic energy, rocket, missile, aviation, spaceflight and metallurgy industries. Specifically, beryllium can be used to make X-ray tube windows, can be used as a neutron reducer in atomic reactors, due to its strong heat-absorbing ability and stable mechanical properties is an excellent aviation material. Beryllium is now widely used in the aerospace, space and nuclear fields, and it is no exaggeration to say that it is an irreplaceable and excellent advantage in these fields.
The metal beryllium reserves in the world are very small, previously only the United States and Kazakhstan and other countries can produce nearly 100 tons per year, so the metal beryllium in the global export trade is firmly controlled by the Western countries. Previously, China could only import a small amount of beryllium from Kazakhstan for use, but the situation has finally improved somewhat. China has discovered a very large metal beryllium deposit in the Mongolian Autonomous County of Heksel, Xinjiang, with proven ore reserves of more than 40 million tons, an average grade of 0.1391% and an average thickness of 4.58 meters, which can be said to be the largest beryllium ore in Asia and the world.
According to public data, the top three countries in the world with beryllium reserves are the United States, Kazakhstan and China, and among these three countries, there is still a gap between our proven reserves and the other two countries. But since the discovery of large quantities of beryllium ore, our country has become the world’s largest reserve.