With the rapid development of fine chemical products, serialization of magnesium salts and special products are developing rapidly. In terms of performance and application, light magnesium carbonate is one of the largest magnesium salt series products in production and sales. With the development of metallurgy, plastics, rubber, paint, paper and other industries, the demand for light magnesium carbonate is increasing year by year.
At present, the consumption of magnesium salt products in the world is represented by the United States, with the largest consumption, followed by Western Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Japan and Southeast Asia and other countries and regions. The production of light magnesium carbonate abroad is less, and magnesium oxide is the main product of magnesium salt products.
The largest producer of magnesia from natural magnesite is Russia, followed by Slovakia. Its products are mainly dead-burnt magnesia, used for refractories and linings in domestic iron and steel industry, and some of them are exported to Western Europe. In Africa and the Middle East, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Turkey and South Africa have established enterprises to produce refractory magnesia and other magnesium salts from seawater or natural minerals, of which light magnesia has little output.
Japan is one of the countries with large production of magnesium oxide and magnesium carbonate in Asia. The main methods of preparing magnesium carbonate are magnesium hydroxide carbonization, heavy magnesium carbonate decomposition, water-soluble magnesium salt and carbonate reaction, and magnesium hydroxide carbonization in industry. Japanese companies producing magnesium carbonate mainly include Shendao Chemical Company, Takayama Caoda Company, Fukuda Pharmaceutical Company, Concorde Chemical Company and so on, with annual output of about 8500t. As China's magnesium dioxide (magnesium carbonate, magnesium oxide) is exported to Japan at a low price and occupies the Japanese market, the domestic production of Japan has been impacted.
In recent years, the consumption of light magnesium carbonate in the domestic market has increased rapidly, and has maintained an increase of more than 10%, and the price has remained basically stable. At present, the total demand for various magnesium salts in various industries is about 400,000 tons per year. Among them, rubber, plastics, paper and other industries need about 80,000 to 150,000 tons of light magnesium carbonate, more than 30,000 tons in ceramic enterprises, and about 150,000 to 250,000 tons in other industries. At the same time, the country also exports some magnesium products to the outside world every year. In recent years, the export of light magnesium carbonate shows a high-speed increasing trend, reaching 3600 tons in 2006. From this, we can see that the foreign market of light magnesium carbonate is also very broad. The import unit price of magnesium carbonate is 1734 US$/ton, while the export unit price is only 609 US$/ton. This also shows that the grade of magnesium products produced in China is low, and high-grade products still need to be imported.
The main production varieties of light magnesium carbonate in China are industrial hydrated basic magnesium carbonate, transparent magnesium carbonate, acicular magnesium carbonate, flame retardant magnesium carbonate, food grade magnesium carbonate and pharmaceutical grade magnesium carbonate. According to incomplete statistics, the actual production capacity of light magnesium carbonate is 30 kt/a. It can be seen that there are still some shortcomings in the supply and demand of magnesium carbonate products in China, and the prospect of developing magnesium salt products is considerable, with better economic and social benefits.
At present, there are more than 20 domestic magnesium salt production enterprises producing light magnesium carbonate with different production scales. The product implementation standard is generally HG/T 2959-2000. With solid minerals as raw materials, its manufacturers are concentrated in Hebei, Shanxi, Hunan, Liaoning, Gansu and other provinces and cities.