Nippon Rare Metal to Construct New Plant for High Purity Selenium

Yokohama based rare metal refiner, Nippon Rare Metal (NRM) constructs a new plant in Iwaki City of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan to produce high-purity selenium used for medical X-ray sensors and other applications. NRM’s present output capacity for high-purity selenium is 5 tonnes per month in Yokohama plant. The new plant may be designed for additional 10-tonne monthly capacity if the demand increases steadily. Total capex for the new plant is 450 million yen including the site acquisition. The new plant will start operation in April 2012.

NRM collects and refines rare metals such as indium, gallium and selenium from scraps of ITO (indium-tin-oxide) sputtering targets, gallium based compound semiconductors and selenium photoreceptors. NRM is almost the only supplier of 6N (99.9999%) selenium, which is used for mammograms.

The new plant in Iwaki will produce 6N selenium when the demand is expected to increase for various types of medical X-ray sensors as well as mammograms. Demand growth is also expected for ordinary grade selenium which is applied to solar batteries.

Construction will start in May 2011 for the operation start in April 2012. The initial output is scheduled at 5 tonnes per month while NRM eyes possibility to increase the capacity to 10 tonnes per month along the demand situation. NRM’s total output capacity for high-purity selenium could triple to 15 tonnes per month at 2 plants in Yokohama and Iwaki.