When it comes to fluoride products, many people feel very strange. However, when it comes to the aluminum industry, everyone knows that it is an important support for China's non-ferrous metal industry. Fluoride products are a small supporting role in serving the aluminum industry. Fluoride products are mainly used as flux for electrolytic aluminum. The scientific and technological content of flux plays a great role in the quality of aluminum. Therefore, fluoride products are also known as monosodium glutamate in aluminum industry. From this perspective, the key to the development level of a country's aluminum industry is the level of fluoride products.

Fluoride products mainly include cryolite and aluminum fluoride, which belong to the field of inorganic fluorine chemical industry, and their consumption accounts for more than 95% of aluminum fluoride products. Cryolite is mainly used in the start-up stage of aluminum electrolysis, while aluminum fluoride is used in the daily production and operation of aluminum electrolysis.

The development of aluminum industry puts forward higher and higher requirements for China's fluoride industry. However, before 2000, China's fluoride industry was only scattered in China and had no competitiveness in the world. Today, China's fluoride industry has a voice in the world.

This earth shaking change is related to an enterprise. The contribution of this enterprise to China's fluoride salt industry is that it has changed the raw material route of fluoride salt products, changed the fluoride salt production from eating resources to eating "waste", and made the fluoride salt products have both high added value and low cost.

The name of this enterprise is duofuduo Chemical Co., Ltd.

A pair of contradictions once plagued the two industries for a long time. China's fluoride industry was established synchronously with the aluminum industry in the early 1950s. For a long time, China's fluoride industry produces hydrofluoric acid by mining fluorite, and then produces fluoride products such as cryolite and aluminum fluoride. However, fluorite resources are natural resources that cannot be regenerated. As an important strategic resource for the development of atomic energy industry, fluorite is protected by countries all over the world due to its limited reserves, and some countries even import a large amount of fluorite for reserves. Since 2003, the state has stipulated that no new fluorite mining license will be issued, which makes the supply of fluorite resources increasingly tight. In this way, the further tension of fluorite has formed a contradiction with the development of fluoride industry.

At the same time, another problem is also bothering people. During the Tenth Five Year Plan period, China's phosphate fertilizer output increased? By nearly 70%, surpassing the United States and ranking among the top in the world. Fluorosilicic acid, an inevitable by-product in the production of phosphate fertilizer, also increased from 100000 tons in 2000 to 330000 tons in 2005. It is expected to increase to 500000 tons per year during the Eleventh Five Year Plan period. However, for a long time, the research and development level of fluorosilicic acid, a by-product of phosphate fertilizer, has been very low in China, which not only causes a large waste of fluoride resources, but also makes it difficult to control the environmental pollution caused by the fluorine contained in the by-product of phosphate fertilizer.

Is there any connection between fluorite and fluosilicic acid? It is understood that fluorite, also known as fluorite, is the main source of fluorine in industry. The world's Fluorite reserves are 623 million tons. Calculated by 50% fluorine content, the fluorine resources are 316 million tons; The world's apatite reserves are about 60 billion tons, the fluorine content in phosphate rock is about 3%, and the fluorine resource is about 1.8 billion tons; China's apatite reserves are about 15 billion tons and fluorine content is about 450 million tons. Obviously, the associated fluorine resources in phosphate rock are much richer than those in fluorite. China's phosphate rock is mainly used to produce phosphate fertilizer, in which the fluorine resources are wasted. So, can fluosilicic acid, a by-product of phosphate fertilizer production, be used to replace fluorite for fluoride production? After research, many experts found that this is indeed a very feasible method - removing fluosilicic acid, a by-product of phosphate fertilizer, to produce fluoride products, which can save non renewable fluorite and be used to produce products with higher added value.

This discovery has inspired the fluoride and phosphate fertilizer industries. In 1992, at the national planning work conference, the former national Jixiu released the fluoride development strategy, which proposed to "control the development of fluorite fluoride plant and strengthen the development and research of phosphate fertilizer by-products".

To this end, the state has invested 600 million yuan and introduced six fluoride product production lines from abroad. It will work quickly only after the problem of fluosilicic acid replacing fluorite is solved. However, up to now, of the six imported units, only two production lines are still in operation and the effect is poor.

According to the analysis of insiders, the process of replacing fluorite with phosphate fertilizer by-product is restricted by four factors:

First, technological reasons.

The production processes of various countries have been tested in China, which has become a testing ground for foreign technology. Although these foreign technologies were very advanced at that time, domestic enterprises did not have the innovation ability to digest and absorb, and basically did not localize them.

Second, equipment problems.

Some enterprises can't find suitable matching equipment even if the process is opened up.

Third, the awareness of environmental protection is not enough.

Although it has been realized that fluorosilicic acid, a by-product in the process of phosphate fertilizer production, will have a certain impact on the environment, the state did not put forward a specific action plan to solve this problem at that time because the awareness of environmental protection was not strong enough. This indirectly resulted in the failure of the fluoride industry to change the raw material route in time.

Fourth, institutional reasons.

This is also a key constraint. Since its birth, most of China's nonferrous metal production enterprises have been part of the nonferrous metal production system. These "in system" enterprises can get preferential treatment in raw materials and other aspects. For example, aluminum hydroxide is needed in the production of fluoride salt, and its unit price is the main factor affecting the cost of aluminum fluoride. Within the non-ferrous metal system, aluminum hydroxide implements the "protective price", with the use price of 740 ~ 760 yuan / ton (dry basis), while the price for "outside the system" chemical enterprises is 1550 yuan / ton. In this way, if "out of system" chemical enterprises produce fluoride products, the cost will reach 2670 yuan / ton, and the enterprise profit will be reduced by half. A typical example is that as an "out of system" enterprise, the factory price of aluminum hydroxide used in Guixi chemical fertilizer plant was actually 185 in the 1990s