Precious as Rare Earth, Basalt Excavated in China

Basalt is as precious as rare earth for its advantages of uniform structure, high hardness, and small porosity and can be applied in various vital industrials. According to relevant statistics, there are a large number of deposits in different areas in China, such as Qinling Mountains, Qilian Mountains of Gansu, Datong of Shanxi. In only 50 square kilometers in Datong, is estimated to have a storage capacity of 18 billion tons and an estimated value of 300 billion yuan, the reserves are extremely impressive!

Basalt is a dense or foamy structure rock that is solidified by volcanic erupted magma after cooling on the surface. It is commonly used as roads, railways, airport runways, etc. However, few people know that it can also be made into high-tech fiber products with high-temperature spinning. It is listed as the world's four high-tech fiber products.

According to public reports, basalt fiber diameter is only 1/10 of human hair, 1/3 weight and 4 times the tensile strength of same diameter steel bar. It can be used at 700℃ temperature. Due to excellent performance of good insulation performance, high-temperature filtration, radiation resistance, and wave transmission performance, the composite materials are widely used in aerospace, military, fire protection, environmental protection, automobile, shipbuilding, engineering plastics, and construction.

The Frenchman was the first one to think of drawing continuous fibers with basalt. China's development has also done some basic research and development work in the 1970s, but for various reasons, it only lasted for a few years. Until the mid-to-late 1990s, to meet the needs of introducing a heavy-duty fighter engine, instrument compartment, and pilot seat insulation and shockproof materials, the project research re-launched.

As of 2018, there are more than 20 enterprises engaged in the production, with a total production capacity of about 30,000 tons, of an actual total output about 10,000 tons, ranking the first place globally. Datong, Shanxi and Hebei are ambitious to expand their production scale to 50,000 tons and 20,000 tons respectively. With the breakthrough in new technology and new process, the unit production cost is expected to continue to drop.

In the field of the national defense industry. Like rare earth, due to the excellent performance of high electrical insulation and high electromagnetic wave transmission, it can be used in antenna fairings, radars, and other radio equipment. It has also been widely used in insulation products for missiles, aircraft and other products for excellent high-temperature resistance and low heat transfer coefficient.

Research by the military research department of China shows that the sandwich protection structure formed by the combination of polyurethane foam, ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fiber, and basalt fiber can protect the armor structure by 3 times of pure steel armor has excellent high-temperature resistance. Same as rare earth and other precious materials, basalt has great potential to be dug.

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