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preface
Rubidium is an extremely precious metal substance that is widely used and expensive compared to rare earths, and in 2018 a super deposit was discovered in the Heyuan area of Guangdong Province, which contains a large amount of rubidium.
This mineral deposit is known as a "priceless treasure", with a price of nearly 10 billion yuan per ton, and Japan expresses its envy and envy when it sees that the mainland is so rich in rubidium.
So how precious is this deposit? Why is Japan so red-eyed?
Rubidium deposits were found in Guangdong
Located in the northeast of Guangdong Province, the source of the Guangdong River covers an area of about 15,900 square kilometers, and over the years, the environment has been well protected and rich in geological resources.
Today, more than 20 gold mines have been discovered in this area, of which the China Gold Mine is located in Taiping Town, in the south of Longchuan County, where the total amount of gold is as high as 400 tons, which is the first gold mine in Guangdong Province. In addition, there are tin mines, and now 15 tin deposits have been discovered, with tin ore reserves of more than 90,000 tons.
Heyuan rubidium ore is mainly distributed in the east, northeast and north of Heyuan City, in 1998 Heyuan City Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources after many surveys found that it contains natural rubidium ore deposits, after mining, it was known that the deposit is one of the world's largest, highest grade, resource potential rubidium ore deposits, the total reserves have reached about 15 million tons, is one of the main sources of mainland rubidium ore resources.
Through years of exploration and research by geologists, coupled with the continuous upgrading of detection equipment and technology, it has continued to mine in recent years, until 2018, a large amount of rubidium ore resources were found again in the Tiantianshan mine in Heyuan, Guangdong.
After researching it, experts found that rubidium ore in Paradise Mountain is relatively rare: "easy to select and take" deposits, this rubidium resource exists in rocks with a depth of 200 to 600 meters, which means that the difficulty and cost of mining this batch of rubidium ore is much lower than other deposits.
The ore content of the deposit is up to 770 ppm, which can be extracted using a simple smelting process, and only a few smelting times to obtain high-quality minerals.
Rubidium ore is not rich in global reserves, and so far only China has truly owned natural independent rubidium ore. With Guangdong, a riversource deposit, rubidium content accounts for 58% of the world's proven total, so China is also the first country in the world to create rubidium ore industry indicators.
In recent years, the world is facing the problem of resource shortage, rubidium ore as one of the world's non-renewable energy, Guangdong Province found new rubidium ore timely to solve the mainland's demand for rubidium ore, so that the mainland got rid of the dilemma of only rare earth elements as an advantageous mineral.
As one of the most economically developed areas in the south of the mainland, the existence of rubidium ore undoubtedly makes Guangdong Province richer and provides a broader space for Guangdong's mineral development.
The existence of rubidium ore has allowed China to "slow down" on the energy issue, in addition to Guangdong contains a large number of rubidium deposits, rubidium ore is also distributed in Yunnan, Xinjiang, Sichuan and other places in China.
In this way, it is a very surprising thing that China has a large land and rich rubidium ore resources, so what is the use of rubidium ore? Why cherish it so much?
The "priceless" rubidium element
Rubidium ore is expensive because it contains rare metals: rubidium, which as one of the elements at the end of the periodic table, is a metal element that cannot be regenerated, that is, it is used as much as it can be, and it will one day be mined out.
Rubidium is an extremely active metal element, like potassium and sodium, the formation of stable monovalent cations, chemical properties and alkali metal elements are not bad, but because the ion radius of rubidium element is larger than potassium, so the electron affinity is smaller than potassium, rubidium is also a radioactive isotope, its half-life is about 5 billion years.
The more active the metal, the more difficult it is to preserve, rubidium element will react with oxygen and water in the air to form rubidium oxide and rubidium hydroxide, once the oxidation reaction occurs after the rubidium element will accelerate dispersion, so the preservation of rubidium element is a very troublesome problem.
Rubidium is a soft metal, and the color of sodium is very close, in the absence of sunlight, the whole body presents a silvery-white metallic luster, low melting point, low density rubidium has ultra-high electrical and thermal conductivity, and superconductivity at low temperatures.
Rubidium is very active and has a small electronic affinity, the physical and chemical properties of rubidium can be used in many fields, the role is very wide, for example, rubidium can be used to make nuclear batteries, methylene blue stain, pediatric drugs, high-sensitivity photographic films and so on.
Most importantly, rubidium can be used in the study of atomic clocks, so far, rubidium atomic clocks are one of the most accurate atoms in the world, with only 1 second error per thousand years, this atomic clock is widely used in navigation, communication and other major fields.
At the same time, rubidium is also a very good element to deal with, can be mixed with a variety of metals, with the presence of rubidium, can smelt a malleable alloy.
Derivatives of rubidium have a wide range of effects, for example, in special glass, engineers often add a substance called rubidium carbonate, which can effectively reduce the conductivity of glass, increase the stability of glass, thereby extending the service life of glass, followed by this special glass will be used in night vision equipment, optical fiber communication and other fields.
Rubidium chloride can be used in the analysis of sodium, iridium, titanium, zirconium and perchlorate, while rubidium nitrate can be used as an analytical reagent, oxidant, and can also be used to detect radioactive materials in the environment.
If rubidium is used directly, it can be used as a rare raw material for a variety of new high-end equipment, such as high-tech weapons and military product research and development, which require the ability of rubidium to conduct low-temperature superconductivity. The existence of rubidium alone has contributed a lot of strength to the industrial development of the mainland.
The rubidium ore discovered in Guangdong Province this time is mainly produced from the volcanic rock of the Great Wall in the source area of Heyuan, the concentration is very high, it is a very valuable high-quality mineral deposit, and it is the luck of the mainland to be found in large quantities in the mainland, so it must be preserved as a strategic material and cannot be easily exported.
In addition to the wide range of rubidium and its derivatives, rubidium ore can also play a significant role in industry and science, rubidium compounds and alloys in rubidium ore can also be used to make photocells, television camera tubes and photomultiplier tubes, but also a necessary material for infrared technology.
It can be seen that as long as the things related to the rubidium element are treasures, as the mainland science and technology become more and more developed, the economy is also rising steadily, the future will have more accurate navigation instruments, electronic equipment, there will be more advanced aerospace equipment, atomic equipment, the need to use rubidium element will be more and more, it can help researchers achieve more accurate positioning and more accurate time, we believe that rubidium element will shine in the future science and technology.
Rubidium is a solid metal raw material backing for any country, no matter which country has mastered a large amount of rubidium element is a thing worth exciting.
China's Guangdong has mined nearly 175,000 tons of mineral deposits, which is undoubtedly a heavenly promotion of China's industrial development, which has aroused the eyes of some countries, the most envious of which is Japan.
Why Japan is red-eyed?
Everyone knows that Japan is an island country, and although they are developed countries, they are only so large, so they have to solve not only the problem of where the population lives, but also the problem of energy shortage, and Japan is a veritable resource-poor country today.
However, Japan has been the most frequent country in the production and utilization of rubidium in the past 20 years, and as early as 2009, Japan has included rubidium as a strategic mineral in Japan's "Rare Metal Guarantee Strategy".
Unfortunately, countries that rely on rubidium so much have no rubidium ore to mine at home, so Japan spends a lot of money to buy rubidium ore from abroad every year, and China is also one of Japan's rubidium resource suppliers.
In addition to rubidium, Japan also has quite little oil and coal.
Japan is surrounded by the sea, although rich in minerals, but there are only 12 kinds of minerals in the country, and some mines have to be protected as national strategic reserves, there are very few minerals available for mining, in order to maintain its own economic development, Japan is highly dependent on imports in mineral resources, and its energy self-sufficiency rate is less than 10%.
As one of the few developed countries in the world, Japan has been expanding its power for many years in order to meet the development of the entire country, so that one day it can obtain inexhaustible energy.
When Japan sees that China has mined a valuable rubidium deposit, it is definitely false to say that it is not envious, if this batch of minerals is produced in Japan, only this batch can fully meet the rubidium metal demand of the entire country of Japan, and there is still a lot left for foreign exports, so as to obtain higher profits.
Japan's comprehensive conditions determine Japan's strong demand for energy imports, due to long-term dependence on resource imports, Japan also suffers some losses in the international situation, once these countries restrict energy exports to Japan, it is equivalent to blocking Japan's industrial development road.
In order to alleviate the problem of its own lack of resources, Japan has attached great importance to the recycling of waste energy in recent years, formulated energy-saving and water-saving measures, and continued to promote environmentally friendly travel in society.
In the face of China's batch of rubidium mines, in addition to envy and envy, Japan has also begun to think about its own development.
China's rediscovery of new rubidium deposits will challenge Japan's competitive position in resources and strategic interests, and China's mastery of this batch of rubidium ore will reduce China's dependence on rare minerals in other countries on the one hand, and promote China's industrial development on the other hand.
China's rise will naturally affect Japan's position, and to put it bluntly, Japan is not good, so every time China makes progress in resource development, Japan will stand up and protest, thinking that it is unfair.
In the face of Japan's "vexatious behavior", which is not allowed to be recognized internationally, China also ignores it.
The struggle between countries over energy is a small matter, and the problem of energy shortage that the whole world is facing is a big thing.
Energy shortage, how to solve it in the future?
Although China has mined a large amount of rubidium deposits at one time, China's total energy and mineral resources have been greatly increased, but it cannot be taken lightly and use these precious energy sources at will.
In fact, China's exploitation of traditional energy sources such as coal and oil is close to the bottom line.
Since the reform and opening up, China has extracted a large amount of coal and oil, which not only excessively consumed China's resources, but also had a great impact on the environment and health.
Moreover, the mining cost of rubidium ore is very high, the mining technology is particularly complex, and the construction team needs to go to the deep mountains, high altitude and other areas with harsh conditions for mining, once mined may produce a large amount of waste and tailings, causing serious environmental pollution, so effective measures must be taken to treat and treat.
The emergence of rubidium ore proves that it is to be taken to use, take to use it to prove that it is decreasing little by little, the existence of rubidium ore is a microcosm of China's energy mineral structure transformation and upgrading, as a non-renewable mineral, China should pay more attention to not appear similar to coal and oil.
The market price of rubidium ore proves the global shortage of energy issues today.
Energy is becoming less and less, we should use rubidium ore in important areas such as green development and scientific and technological innovation, and at the same time, we must combine China's current national conditions and development stage, scientific exploitation of energy, rational use of energy, refuse overexploitation, do not cause great harm to the environment, and keep trying to make up for it, this kind of trading that is not worth the loss China should not continue to do.
Today, China has developed some emerging technologies, such as microbial extraction technology, which can use the metabolic activity of bacteria instead of traditional chemical leaching methods, which can not only reduce environmental pollution, but also improve the recovery rate of rubidium.
epilogue
Rubidium ore has brought a new turning point to China's energy market, but also provided new opportunities for China in the industrial field, and with the continuous reform and innovation of technology, the rubidium ore industry will slowly embark on the road of sustainable development.
Although international competition is becoming more and more fierce, and more and more countries are eyeing China's vast mineral resources, China still has a shortage of other resources and needs to rely on the import of resources from other countries.
But we always believe that China will not stop here, and China will reach a higher level in mineral development and application in the future.