Brown corundum is a kind of artificial industrial raw material, because of its high hardness, high temperature oxidation resistance, good chemical stability, good grinding performance, as a refractory raw material and abrasive is widely used in the fields of ceramics, metallurgy, building materials and mechanical processing.

      Bauxite is the main raw material for smelting brown corundum and also the precondition for the survival of brown corundum industry.Most of China's bauxite resources are used for smelting aluminum, but only a small part is used as raw materials for refractory materials, corundum grinding materials, ceramics and other chemical industries.At present, China consumes an average of about 145 million tons of bauxite resources every year (including imported minerals), including more than 12,500-130 million tons of aluminum industry, 1100-12 million tons of refractory materials and abrasives (including electric melts, high bauxite clinker and high aluminum cement, etc.), ceramics and other industries of 4 to 5 million tons.With the rapid expansion of alumina production capacity in China, the resources of high-quality bauxite used in brown corundum smelting will become increasingly scarce.

      Short of high quality bauxite resources, lead to rising the price of bauxite, the price of light cooked bauxite after dehydration has exceeded one thousand yuan, the price of bauxite cost accounting for about one-third of brown fused alumina smelting production cost between a 1/2, smelting brown fused alumina bauxite grade also falling, down grade means of smelting raw material of brown fused alumina mineral content of impurities increases, this will not only affect corundum melting process and the quality of the products, but also greatly increases the energy consumption of smelting.Now the price of electricity and graphite electrode is also rising, and the smelting of brown corundum mainly relies on the conversion of electric energy into heat energy to melt and reduce the material, and the consumption of electric energy accounts for 2/5-1/2 of the production cost of smelting.To sum up, these conditions cause the high production cost of brown corundum. At present, the smelting cost per ton of brown corundum has reached more than 3,000 yuan.The increasing energy consumption and production cost of smelting brown corundum lead to the great pressure on the survival of brown corundum production enterprises.As a product with relatively low price, brown corundum can hardly bear the high cost. At present, some small and medium-sized brown corundum production enterprises in China have stopped production due to the cost of smelting.