Development status of industrial silicon
Industrial silicon is a product smelted by silicon ore and carbonaceous reducing agent in a mine hot furnace, the main component is silicon element, its properties are hard and brittle, mainly used in aluminum alloy industry, non-ferrous alloy additives, chemical industry, after a series of processes purified to generate polysilicon and monocrystalline silicon, for photovoltaic industry and electronics industry use.
At present, the silicon industry scale has ranked among the fifth variety of non-ferrous metal industry after aluminum, copper, lead and zinc as the most basic raw materials in the silicon energy industry chain. The downstream application of silicon industry has been penetrated into the related industries of national defense information industry and new energy, and plays an important role in our economic and social development.
China is the world's largest producer, consumer and exporter of industrial silicon. In 2021, China's industrial silicon production was 2.7 million tons, and consumption was 1.86 million tons, accounting for 78% and 55% of the global total, respectively; In the same period, the export volume was 778,000 tons, accounting for more than 50% of the total overseas industrial silicon consumption. Driven by the growing demand in the polysilicon and silicone fields, China's industrial silicon production is expected to increase to more than 3.1 million tons in 2022, and the announced new planned production capacity of industrial silicon exceeds 3 million tons.
Industrial silicon industry development trends
Although the development of industrial silicon industry is timely, there are still three major challenges to high-quality development, namely, the urgent need to optimize and upgrade the industrial structure, the weak technological innovation ability, and the pressure of green, low-carbon environmental protection.
（1）The industrial structure urgently needs to be optimized and upgraded
According to statistics, in 2021, China's domestic industrial silicon device production capacity will reach 5 million tons / year, about 200 production enterprises, most of the scale of enterprises is less than 20,000 tons / year, the entire industry presents small and scattered characteristics. In addition, the season has a greater impact on the production of industrial silicon industry, the southern region is rich in hydropower resources, industrial silicon enterprises take advantage of the relatively low electricity price during the flood period for seasonal production, and some plant capacity is idle in stages. In order to ensure the supply of basic raw materials and related materials in the silicon-based material industry chain, efforts should be made to solve the supply bottleneck of raw materials such as high-quality silica and high-quality reducing agents, continuously improve the supply capacity and supply quality of key materials such as industrial silicon and polysilicon, and promote the optimization and upgrading of product structure.
（2）The ability to innovate technological innovation is not strong
In recent years, China's industrial silicon field has achieved a breakthrough in the production process of 25000kVA (kVA (kVA) large furnace type, the output scale and market share of large furnace type are expanding day by day, and the supporting capacity of mechanization and automation is increasingly perfect. However, the production process of industrial silicon large furnace still faces problems such as unstable product quality, unsatisfactory technical and economic indicators, and large gap between green and intelligent digitalization. In order to cope with this challenge, experts suggest that scientific and technological innovation should be placed in a more prominent and important position, not only to adhere to scientific and technological innovation, to solve the bottleneck of technical equipment and technology in the development of the industry, but also to adhere to management innovation and development model innovation, and promote the integrated development of upstream and downstream.
（3）The pressure of green, low-carbon environmental protection is greater
Industrial silicon is a resource-based, energy-consuming, high-pollution metallurgical industry, the production of 1 ton of industrial silicon requires about 3 tons of silica, about 2 tons of reducing agent, about 0.1 tons of electrode, which has high requirements for silica performance indicators. Comprehensive calculation, raw material cost accounts for about 40%~45%. In order to solve the challenges brought by the pressure of green, low-carbon environmental protection, experts suggest that in accordance with industrial policies and the requirements of "dual control" of energy consumption, the existing production capacity should be encouraged to gradually increase the proportion of clean energy application, and a low-emission silicon-based new energy industrial base with a high proportion of renewable energy should be established.
