WEIFANG HUAMEI Fine Technical Ceramics: from German Craftsmanship to Industrial Performance

摘要

For more than ten years now, the centre of China's high-end silicon carbide (SiC) production has been based in Weifang, a metropolis with a population of 10 million people around 150 km west of Qingdao in Shandong Province. Weifang is already known internationally for its long tradition of hand-crafted paper kites, the annual Kite Festival in April attracting tens of thousands of visitors from all over the world. Another important source of employment in the region is coal mining both in open-cast and underground mines. Strikingly reminiscent of Germany's Ruhr district, a few disused colliery towers from before the turn of the 1900s are dotted around the area. These were built and operated by German mining engineers and companies well over one hundred years ago, and are now integrated into a museum of technology. Besides silica sand and very high energy consumption, the coal, mostly in the form of petcoke, is one of the key components in the production of SiC raw materials in the Acheson process.