Innovation and Development

Major Step for Industrial Use of Green Metal

Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, CAS has made remarkable progress on the project of research and application of RE-Mg master alloy. Experts, who attended the check-acceptance meeting for this project on Dec. 26, 2008, indicated that the technology to produce RE-Mg master alloys with sinking liquid cathode in molten salts is taking the lead in this field at present. And the weight-saving and environment-friendly magnesium metal materials with high-performance will make the manufacturing industry to develop on a sustainable basis. After five years hard work, the group have innovatively developed a set of arts and crafts and techniques for the production of RE-Mg master alloys with sinking liquid cathode in molten salts. With the self developed set of arts and crafts and techniques, the key issues, such as the great disparity on density and melting point between rare earth and magnesium have successively been overcome. A series of RE-Mg master alloy with uniform component, low cost and high property include 17 kinds of alloys, such as Mg-La, Mg-Nd, Mg-Gd, Mg-Y, Mg-Ho, Mg-LPC(La, Pr, Ce)，Mg-Nd-misch metal, Mg-Ce-mish metal, Mg-Y-misch metal etc. have been synthesized. The successful development of these master alloys has filled the gap in the relevant felids.
A R&D base for series rare-earth magnesium master alloys was built during the implementation of the project, with a capacity of 100 tons/year, the alloys have already been provided to FAW Group, Mitsubishi, GM and many other companies at home and abroad. Using this series rare-earth magnesium master alloy, the project team also successfully developed 6 types of rare-earth magnesium alloy materials featured with high strength and high resistance, including the new rare-earth magnesium for die casting, such as (AZ91X), Mg-Gd-Y series and rare-earth magnesium alloy (MB26), etc., which have been used for fabricating cylinder head cover of high power automotive engines and aeronautical industry.

New Technology on Synthesis of Trioxymethylene

On Jan. 10, 2009, the production facility in CNOOC China Blue Chemical Co. Ltd. (Hainan Dongfang Co.), with Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics (LICP), CAS, responsible for the core technology, BDI Engineering, Inc. for the design of pre-production test succeeded in trial production and yielded qualified trioxymethylene. This marked a success in the industrial test of the technology for synthesizing trioxymethylene using ionic liquid as catalyst for the first time. Designed by LICP, this facility uses LZT-Ⅰ ionic liquid as the catalyst that can be produced on a normal industrial scale. This trial production went through the whole process, tested the rationality of the design, and reproduced the lab research results.