Chromium Resources

The abundance of chromium in the crust is 0.035%, but the generated chromium ore contains high chromium. The chromite resources in the nearly north-south fold belts on the earth account for more than 95% of the world's total, of which the Precambrian fold belt running through eastern Africa accounts for 94% of the world's total. The Ural Variscan fold belt accounts for about 2% of the world's total, while the Alpine fold belt accounts for about 2%. The geological conditions of chromium mineralization in China are not ideal, and the north-south chromite belt has not been found in the Cambrian geological area. The chromite deposits in Tibet Yunnan belong to the Alpine fold belt; The chromite deposits in Xinjiang Gansu and Qinghai Inner Mongolia are located in Hercynian near EW trending fold belts; They do not have the conditions to generate mega deposits. The main chromium bearing mineral with industrial value is chrome spinel, which is often mistaken for chromite. There are three most useful chrome spinel minerals: magnesium chromite (Mg, Fe) Cr2O4, hard chrome spinel (Mg, Fe) (Cr, Al) 2O4 and aluminum chromite Fe (Cr, Al) 2O4.

The largest user of chromium ore is the ferroalloy industry, accounting for about 80% of the total production of chromium ore. In the chromium ore market, it is called metallurgical grade chromium ore. High quality metallurgical grade chromium ore requires Cr2O3>48%, S<0.1%, P<0.1%, and Cr2O3: FeO>3 to produce ferrochromium with Cr>70%. Due to the increasing reduction of chromium rich ores, there is a relative increase in ores with low chromium to iron ratios. They can only be used for smelting furnace grade ferrochromium.