The development history of silicon metal in China
The development of silicon metal in China began in 1957, when the first production unit using a single-phase double-electrode furnace was built and put into operation in Liaoning with the help of the Soviet Union, and after 1960, China began to design and build its own single-phase and three-phase electrode silicon metal furnaces. From the early 1960s to the end of the 1970s, a dozen production units were built and put into operation in Liaoning, Hebei, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Tianjin, Henan, Qinghai, Guizhou and other provinces and regions, with a production capacity of nearly 20,000 t/a. At this stage, China's silicon metal production was in a state of self-production and self-sufficiency.
After 1980, China's silicon metal began to be exported, and with the rapid increase in export volume, the number of production enterprises rose rapidly. By the end of the 1980s, the number of silicon metal enterprises in China had reached about 300, and the political turmoil of 1989 caused a major setback to the production of silicon metal in China, and in the years that followed, more than half of the silicon metal enterprises in China were shut down or converted to production. In the mid-1990s, there was a short-lived shortage of silicon metal in the world and prices rose, so some of China's silicon metal enterprises resumed production, and some units built new or additional silicon metal furnaces. At the same time, a number of new silicon enterprises were built in Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan and other provinces where the supply of electricity was sufficient and the price of electricity was low.
