Asian Metal visits Lipmann Walton & Co.

Chi Hin Ling (Regional Manager and Base Metals Analyst) and Jack Rice (Minor Metals Analyst) from Asian Metal’s London office paid a visit to, minor metals specialist, Lipmann Walton & Co’s offices in Hampton Court, UK on 8th October 2014. Chi and Jack met with Anthony Lipmann, Managing Director, to discuss trends in the hafnium and zirconium markets, worldwide.

They agreed that the development of the Chinese nuclear industry will gradually have an impact on the demand for nuclear grade zirconium, possibly moving the axis of production of nuclear grades of hafnium and zirconium to the Far East. However, for the moment China is estimated to produce no more than 80 tonnes of nuclear grade zirconium sponge (hafnium-free) from about 800 tonnes of sponge across China. It is the costly and complicated process of removing hafnium from zirconium that is likely to mean that Chinese nuclear consumers will be sourcing material from abroad in the medium and short term but in future China will develop its zirconium production to the point where it can fully serve Chinese nuclear and industrial demand.

However, for the time being, China’s non-nuclear production is being exported to Europe, where it serves the industrial production of corrosion-resistant semi-finished production of plates and tubes. It is the off-cuts and scrap from this process that is being used for alloying zirconium separately with iron, aluminium, copper and magnesium for use in a host of non-nuclear applications. The aluminium bearing alloys are used in aerospace and automotive, while the alloys with copper are going to be used in micronized electronics to improve the strength and conductivity levels of wires

Moving forward the outlook for non-nuclear applications of zirconium is very bright.

As regards the hafnium, which is the element that must be cleaned/refined from zirconia to produce nuclear grades of zirconium sponge, these are finding ever-growing use in hafnium-bearing nickel base super alloys for the high temperature parts in aero and industrial gas turbines (IGT).

Anthony was interested to hear that Asian Metal is expanding coverage of the European zirconium and hafnium markets, adding that the sharing of information can be beneficial to this opaque market.