Micropore Alumina can Replace Sintered Alumina?

With the importance of energy saving and consumption reduction of steel industry increasing, refractory raw materials and materials are developing in the direction of light weight and low thermal conductivity. Therefore, an upgraded version of sintered alumina - micropore alumina of energy-saving and lightweight is created.

Micropore alumina is made from industrial alumina, aluminum hydroxide and alpha Al2O3 powder that are used as the main raw materials, and the appropriate additive needs to be added. Finally it is fired by high temperature shaft kiln. These products have low porosity, high strength, good thermal shock resistance and high refractoriness, etc. 

Compared with ordinary sintered alumina, under the premise of the same strength and ability to resist erosion, it reduces the material thermal conductivity and thermal stress structure and improves the insulation material and thermal shock performance by improving the internal closed micro pores, which can be used for ladle wall and bottom pouring material, fabrication or parts of refractory products or the whole instead of ordinary sintered alumina. In addition, it uses the refractory products produced by  micropore alumina, whose strength and corrosion resistance will not be reduced and will have better thermal shock resistance, low thermal conductivity, and great performance of energy-saving heat preservation.

To the sudden appearance of micropore alumina, for sintered alumina enterprises, what should they deal with?

Since 1995, the testing production of sintered alumina in Shandong, domestic sintered alumina in China has experienced 20 years of development, and the production technology has been mature and the quality is also relatively stable, which is widely used in the production of steel with high performance refractory materials, such as slide gate, skate, air brick, pouring material and casting, etc. By the end of 2014, the productivity has more than 350000 tons of sintered alumina, the output around 250000 tons. Even some enterprises with the advantages of alumina resources are also considering the sintered alumina project, and some refractory products enterprises that need larger amount of sintered alumina also have plans for a new production line or buying available sintered alumina enterprises to reduce the cost.

The excess production capacity and self-sufficient development of products enterprises bring the pressure for sintered alumina enterprises that produce and sell the raw materials of sintering alumina. They not only face the price war from competitors, but also need to be alert to the return of white fused alumina at a lower price, and micropore alumina taking up positions in the market. They still have to face the decline of product prices and the compression of profit margins. Therefore, editors believe that the problem of 2015 facing sintered alumina enterprises is that how to make the using performance of sintered alumina keep stable and reduce the production cost, keep the price advantage, and maintain the existing market share at the same time.

Though micropore alumina can replace sintered alumina in theory, but under the situation of the market downturn in refractory industry chain, it is still difficult to let some enterprises that have been used to using sintered alumina choose micropore alumina with high price, so it is impossible to completely replace the sintered alumina with micropore alumina in the short term. The market position of sintered alumina still cannot be shaken, but some companies can face that and should also not reject micropore alumina products or carry out micropore alumina project out of blind impulse. After all, the lightweight development is the trend of the development of the materials.