When northern rare earths "fell in love" with southern kaolin

When the rare earths in Baotou meet the kaolin of Jingdezhen, it is a collision of two kinds of "soil" and "soil" that span nearly 2,000 kilometers and have been geologically tempered for hundreds of millions of years, and after high-temperature quenching, the two "soils" work together to create a beautiful and dazzling - rare earth glaze antibacterial and antiviral ceramics.

On August 16, 2021, the development and construction project of rare earth glaze antibacterial and antiviral ceramic cultural and creative products developed by Baotou Zhongke Ceramic Technology Co., Ltd. was included in the list of national cultural and tourism science and technology innovation project reserves in 2021, which is the first project and enterprise in the autonomous region to be selected for the list.

On September 2, 2021, the reporter came to Baotou Zhongke Ceramic Technology Co., Ltd., located in the Rare Earth High-tech Zone, to visit how kaolin and rare earth collided here.

Zhou Xiao, chairman of Zhongke Wanxiang, told reporters that the rare earth glaze antibacterial and antiviral ceramic project was first developed by the laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and in April 2019, the project team created Baotou Zhongke Ceramic Technology Co., Ltd. and the Zhongke Vientiane brand through the transformation of scientific and technological achievements. As soon as the company was established, it decided to take a unique road of integration of traditional Chinese culture and modern science and technology, that is, to combine ceramic culture with rare earth composite antibacterial technology to create a new cultural and creative product with unique traditional Chinese aesthetics and scientific and technological connotations - rare earth glaze antibacterial and antiviral ceramics.

Chinese ceramics have a long history, but most of the traditional ceramic production sites are known for their creative innovations in design, color and decoration. Baotou is famous for "China has rare earths", although the development and utilization of rare earths is only a short period of fifty or sixty years, but Baotou's rare earth products have long been in the sky, and they are also unique in the field of material science.

Zhao Tianyu, the technical leader of Zhongke Wanxiang, told reporters that the glaze of traditional ceramics needs to add heavy metals such as lead and cadmium to enhance the gloss of the glaze and other glaze effects, and the original intention of the rare earth glaze ceramic research team to do rare earth ceramics is to experiment with rare earth elements can replace lead and cadmium to improve the effect of ceramic glaze. In the follow-up research and development process, the young scientific research team achieved this "small goal", and the ceramics with rare earth elements added were more vivid and shiny than traditional ceramics after firing. What is even more surprising is that the team successfully produced an original rare earth composite antibacterial material in the process of developing rare earth glaze, and the addition of the material gave ceramic products an unexpected empowerment - antibacterial and antiviral. According to the testing of Guangdong Microbial Analysis and Testing Center and domestic P4 laboratory, the antibacterial rate of Staphylococcus aureus on the surface of ceramics with rare earth composite antibacterial materials is greater than 99.99%, the antibacterial rate of E. coli reaches 99.9%, the antibacterial rate of Helicobacter pylori reaches 92.06%, and the antiviral activity rate of enterovirus reaches 93%. The rare earth composite antibacterial material developed by Zhongke Vientiane has therefore been recognized as the first batch of new materials by the Autonomous Region Department of Industry and Information Technology in 2020.

Zhao Tianyu said that many people come to Inner Mongolia to think of local specialties such as beef jerky, but beef jerky is not a characteristic tourism product with the Baotou label, and rare earth glazed ceramic cultural and creative products fill this gap. At present, the rare earth glaze ceramic cultural and creative products of Zhongke Vientiane have tea sets, coffee cups, mugs, tableware, vases, ornaments, etc. These ceramic literary creations are more transparent, moist and bright because of the addition of rare earth elements on the basis of maintaining the traditional Chinese ceramics type, color and tone, so that ceramic products have been upgraded in the field of material science, and have also become a typical representative of Baotou rare earth cultural products, "truly integrating modern science and traditional culture organically." ”

The development and construction project of rare earth glaze antibacterial and antiviral ceramic cultural and creative products has been highly valued by the Cultural and Tourism Department of the Autonomous Region and the Baotou Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism since its inception. Zhongke Vientiane rare earth glazed antibacterial ceramics also lived up to expectations, and won the gold medal of the "Cultural and Creative Tourism Commodity Competition" of the autonomous region in 2019; the silver medal of the "China Tourism Commodity Competition" in 2020; and the cultural innovation project of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People's Republic of China in 2021, three major leaps in three years. This cultural and creative product not only meets the "14th Five-Year Plan" of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, but also actively responds to the requirements of "building a rare earth + consumer goods product chain" in baotou's "14th Five-Year Plan" rare earth industry development plan.

The reporter learned that at the beginning of the establishment of Zhongke Vientiane, there were only 8 people, and now there are less than 30 employees, from the research and development of core technologies, the artistic design of ceramic creative works to the production and firing of ceramics, quality inspection, etc., all links are full of young people with vigor. In their hands, kaolin from the south has undergone traditional porcelain-making processes such as mud training, blank making, glazing, and kiln making, supplemented by 3D printing product design and glaze modulation with a variety of rare earth elements, and the combination of "soil" and "soil" has created a unique ceramic product in the country, branded with the label of "China Baotou".

Zhou Xiao said that the rare earth glaze antibacterial and antiviral ceramic cultural and creative series products as the first product selected by the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region into the national culture and tourism science and technology innovation project, at the same time, many official institutions of the state have listed the rare earth glaze antibacterial and antiviral ceramics in Vientiane as a national gift to domestic and foreign VIPs, which will enable more people at home and abroad to understand Baotou, understand the rare earth, understand the condensed scientific and technological innovation power of Baotou rare earth products, and feel the cultural confidence from Baotou.

Source: Baotou Daily reporter Fan Sihui