"High precision" vanadium titanium used on Beidou navigation satellite system

On June 23, 2020, the last Beidou navigation satellite tore through the sky and rushed into space with a long tail flame. China's Beidou navigation system officially completed the global networking and ended perfectly.

This great project is closely related to "high-precision and advanced" materials, of which vanadium and titanium are two extremely important. Beidou satellite is made of international high-strength aviation titanium alloy.

"Vanadium and titanium are important strategic metals in the country and are widely used in aerospace, military, marine, chemical and other fields." Recently, Fang Lin, Secretary General of the Committee in the field of comprehensive utilization of vanadium and titanium and President of Panxi vanadium and titanium inspection and testing institute, said in an interview with materials of a big country that the use of vanadium and titanium is often a sign of a country's national defense strength.

Vanadium and titanium mainly exist in vanadium titanomagnetite in the form of associated ore in China. Panxi vanadium titanomagnetite resources have been proved to be more than 9 billion tons, accounting for about 95% of the country, containing the world's first titanium reserves and the world's third vanadium reserves.

1. Initial establishment of new standard system

At the end of last year, the 2019 International Forum on comprehensive utilization of vanadium and titanium resources was held in Panzhihua. At this grand meeting, "vanadium and titanium people" witnessed an important moment - the establishment of the Committee in the field of comprehensive utilization of vanadium and titanium. In the industry, the plan to establish a committee in the field of comprehensive utilization of vanadium and titanium has been proposed for a long time.

Vanadium titanium magnetite is an important national strategic mineral resource with high comprehensive utilization value. Panzhihua has unique vanadium and titanium resources. The Secretariat of the Committee in the field of vanadium and titanium comprehensive utilization is located in Panxi vanadium and titanium inspection and testing institute, which helps to accelerate the innovative development and utilization of vanadium and titanium strategic resources.

Some international community standardization organizations have high popularity and social recognition, providing standardization support services for the development of material industry. China's vanadium and titanium industry also needs such a group standard to lead the high-quality development of the industry.

In fact, the Committee on the comprehensive utilization of vanadium and titanium, which has been brewing for nearly five years, has its unique policy and technical background.

In 2015, the national work plan for deepening standardization reform was issued. In order to increase the effective supply of standards and learn from foreign standardization work experience, the "cultivation and development of group standards" was put forward. In 2016, 21 academicians jointly put forward the proposal of "establishing China's material test standard system as soon as possible". In 2018, group standards were officially included in the newly revised and implemented standardization law.

In order to implement the national spirit of deepening standardization reform, a national standard preparation and revision platform falls on Panxi vanadium and titanium Testing Institute.

The establishment of the Committee in the field of comprehensive utilization of vanadium and titanium is not only of great significance to enhance the international competitiveness of China's vanadium and titanium industry, but also fills the gap in China's standard system for comprehensive utilization of vanadium titanium magnetite and CSTM standard system.

2. The utilization rate of vanadium and titanium in China is the world leader
Improving the utilization rate of vanadium titanium magnetite resources is the direction of joint efforts of vanadium titanium industry and academia for many years. To this end, the industry has held "brainstorming meetings" for many times, hoping to solve problems. However, this has always been a barrier in front of the vanadium and titanium industry.

In nature, vanadium and titanium are difficult to exist in a single form, and mainly form symbiotic ore or composite ore with other minerals. Therefore, their separation is very difficult, and the refining process and process are relatively long. With each refining process, there will be more or less losses. On the one hand, it directly affects the comprehensive utilization of vanadium and titanium. On the other hand, due to earlier technical constraints and other reasons, the industry is facing problems such as insufficient deep processing, low product grade, backward process equipment and so on.

3. Soil culture standard preparation and revision
The significance of material specialization standard and evaluation system is to give play to the coordination and interaction between basic technical elements and provide technical support for the high-quality development of material industry. However, the formulation of standards with too many organizations and unclear system will only hinder the development of the industry.

As of last year, 821 international, national, industrial, local and group standards on "vanadium" and "titanium" have been filed and are currently effective, involving aerospace, shipbuilding, metallurgy, nonferrous metals, medical treatment, energy and building materials.

This "huge" amount of standards reflects the dispersion of vanadium and titanium industry standards to a certain extent.

First of all, at present, there are many overlapping organizations in the preparation and revision of standards, and the system is not very clear. Secondly, in the current standards, the standards of methods and products account for more than 80%, but there is a serious lack of standards related to the technology, environmental protection, safety and evaluation of comprehensive utilization of vanadium and titanium, which is a defect in the type of standards.

Moreover, vanadium and titanium are widely used, and the technical requirements in each application field are different. Therefore, there are many centralized departments of current national standard technology, and there is a lack of general type standards. Finally, in high-end applications such as aerospace, the leading role of key technologies is not significant.

Compared with the current national standard, the group standard has obvious advantages: first, CSTM fc20 expands the standard type to the comprehensive utilization of vanadium and titanium. In addition, the formulation cycle was shortened from 3 years to half a year.

4. From the perspective of the whole industry chain
Standards also need to constantly find problems, improve and revise in practice. Only in this way can we improve the scientificity and high quality of the standard.

In this process, it is very important to build a standard system from the perspective of the whole industrial chain, fill in the system framework and improve the connection and cooperation between upstream and downstream.