As long as you have a little understanding of science and technology or military affairs, you will know that rare earth is a well-deserved "industrial gold". As small as mobile phones, computers and copying lights, as large as tanks, planes, rockets and missiles, their manufacturing processes are inseparable from rare earths.
In petroleum, rare earth molecular sieve catalyst has the characteristics of high activity, good selectivity and strong resistance to heavy metal poisoning, and is widely used in petroleum catalytic cracking process.
In addition, in the polishing of optical glass, spectacle lens, picture tube and metal tableware, rare earth oxides can be added to produce optical glass and special glass with different uses. At the same time, rare earth is also a lubricant in many high-tech fields such as electronics, lasers and superconductivity. It is a national heavyweight.
But in the last century, due to the backward separation technology, we had to sell rare earth ore at a low price and buy back high-purity rare earth at a high price. This humbled situation lasted for a long time, until the emergence of Xu Guangxian.
Xu Guangxian 1920 was born in Shangyu, Zhejiang, and his father was a famous local lawyer. He hoped that Xu Guangxian would make great achievements in the field of law. However, contrary to expectations, Xu Guangxian chose science and engineering instead of law. In fact, Xu Guangxian chose science and engineering for a simple reason. In his youth, the artillery fire of the Japanese invaders spread all over China, and the law had no substantive role at that time. Only industry and military are the shortcuts to get a country out of humiliation.
After graduating from Shanghai Jiaotong University, Xu Guangxian entered Columbia University with honors. Because of his talent, he quickly got a doctorate. If you stay in Xu Guangxian, you can live a rich middle class life, but at this time, Xu Guangxian is thinking about how to return to China quickly. The rapid deterioration of Sino-US relations due to the Korean War made the United States begin to restrict the return of China people studying in the United States. If it is later, it is likely that you will not be able to return to China.
The only thing that made him hesitate to return to China this time was his wife Gao, because Gao will get his doctorate in one year. If we go back to China, it means that all my wife's previous efforts have been in vain, but Gao only said a word to Xu Guangxian, what are we going to study in the United States for? After that, Mr. and Mrs. Xu Guangxian did not hesitate. On 195 1, they overcame many difficulties and returned to the motherland.
In the 1970s, Xu Guangxian was ordered in a crisis and accepted an arduous task. Study rare earth and master the effective method of separating rare earth. This was very important to us at that time. Although we have huge rare earth reserves, we are seriously short of separation technology, in order not to let the scientific research of the motherland be envied by others. Xu Guangxian began to forget all about eating and sleeping, and finally overcame the limitation of rare earth separation technology. 1975 pioneered the theory of rare earth cascade extraction, which reduced the production cost of rare earth by three quarters. In the past, it took several years for artificial extraction experiments, and only a small amount of data was needed to continuously separate rare earths. This technology even forced the American and Japanese rare earth plants to stop production, broke the foreign technology monopoly, shook the international rare earth pattern in one fell swoop, and enabled China to truly control the rare earth. Have the ability to realize cash.
Rare earth elements are difficult to separate because of their similar chemical properties. The purity of rare earth in industry is very high. For example, as the matrix material of red phosphor for color TV, the purity of yttrium oxide is greater than 99.995%, the purity of europium oxide is greater than 99.99%, and the purity of neodymium oxide as the laser material is greater than 99.9995%. Gadolinium oxide is used as the matrix material of X-ray intensifying screen, and its purity is more than 99.99%. Therefore, the price of high-purity rare earth reagents is very expensive, ranging from several hundred yuan to tens of thousands of yuan per kilogram, and the cascade extraction method overcomes the blindness in the extraction process test and greatly shortens the experimental period.
Pr-Nd, the most difficult element in rare earth, was conquered, and a long-standing unsolved problem in China was solved. So Xu Guangxian is called the Yuan Longping of rare earth. Then the static parameter design and dynamic simulation calculation technology of cascade extraction process are established, and the method of enlarging the design parameters to industrial scale production is realized.
In the 1940s, the cascade extraction theory and its calculation method have been leading and supporting the sustainable development of rare earth separation technology in China. It can even be said that the reason why we now occupy about 70% of the world's rare earth resources and undertake more than 90% of the global market supply is mostly attributed to the establishment of the cascade extraction theory.
Europe, America, Japan and other countries have never worried about China's rare earth weapons, and we have never used them. 20 10 In September, Japan detained the captain of a fishing boat in China on the grounds of fishing in disputed waters, and China responded by suspending the rare earth trade with Japan. Later, Reuben quickly released the captain of the China fishing boat and was ridiculed by The New York Times. This is a humiliating Japanese retreat, which shows China's position in rare earth resources, and it is also a step to realize rare earth.