Shinko Chemical Launches New Tellurium Smelting Plant

Osaka based rare metal compound maker, Shinko Chemical completed construction of the new smelting plant for tellurium at Amagasaki plant in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. The firm’s tellurium output capacity increases to 20 tonnes per year. The mass production will start in 3Q 2012. The firm becomes able to use both copper smelting residue and other metal scrap as tellurium materials. The raw material diversification allows stable tellurium supply to the market.

Shinko Chemical recycles rare metals including vanadium, selenium and tellurium and processes these rare metals to compound products. The firm has produced tellurium at yearly 6 tonnes from copper smelting residue, utilizing roasting and smelting facilities of the selenium plant in Amagasaki site.

The firm constructed the new one-story smelting plant dedicated to tellurium production with hydrometallurgical smelting and reducing facilities. The investment was approximately 140 million yen for the smelting equipments. The firm covers a half of the capex by Japanese government’s subsidy for investments and new technologies to reduce rare metal and rare earth consumptions.

The new plant adopted the technology to remove different types of impurities from several kinds of metal scraps including sputtering target materials though the firm has used only copper smelting residue for tellurium production. Shinko Chemical now established an integrated production system for both selenium and tellurium from scrap to compound.

The new plant will implement test operation by the end of June and enter mass production of products with 99.9 or more purity and 99.99% or more purity of tellurium in and after July. The initial output plan is 15 tonnes per year including proprietor production and contract smelting for third-parties.

Tellurium is used for compound semiconductors applied to solar cells, Peltier cooling devices and recording mediums. Other major applications are vulcanizing agent for high strength rubber and additive for free-cutting steels.