Germanium Industry Annual Report 2017
2018-02-24 18:06:08 【Print】
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1. A brief introduction on Chinese germanium industry
1.1. Characteristics of germanium metal
The element of germanium falls into IVA group in the periodic table. With a chemical symbol of Ge, it has an atomic number of 32 and atomic mass of 72.64. Its melting point is 937.4 °C while its boiling point is 2830 °C, and it has a density of 5.35g/cm-3 and a hardness of 6-6.5. It is a lustrous, hard, grayish-white metalloid of the carbon group. Germanium is stable in air at room temperature and does not react with water vapor; but at a temperature of between 600-700℃, it is quickly oxidized into germanium dioxide. The content of germanium in the earth's crust is about 0.0007% , and there is almost no concentrated germanium ore. Its present in nature is fragmented, a great amount of germanium being found in silicate salt mines and sulfide ores of different kinds of metals and coals. Germanium is also extracted from some copper ores, iron ores and sulphide ores, as well as some silver ores. In addition, there are trace amounts of germanium in rocks, soils, spring water as well as some plants such as ginseng, radix angelica, medlar, aloe, lucid ganoderma, tea leaf. Germanium has been widely used in electronics, optics, chemicals, biomedicines, energy and other high-tech fields.
1.1. Characteristics of germanium metal
The element of germanium falls into IVA group in the periodic table. With a chemical symbol of Ge, it has an atomic number of 32 and atomic mass of 72.64. Its melting point is 937.4 °C while its boiling point is 2830 °C, and it has a density of 5.35g/cm-3 and a hardness of 6-6.5. It is a lustrous, hard, grayish-white metalloid of the carbon group. Germanium is stable in air at room temperature and does not react with water vapor; but at a temperature of between 600-700℃, it is quickly oxidized into germanium dioxide. The content of germanium in the earth's crust is about 0.0007% , and there is almost no concentrated germanium ore. Its present in nature is fragmented, a great amount of germanium being found in silicate salt mines and sulfide ores of different kinds of metals and coals. Germanium is also extracted from some copper ores, iron ores and sulphide ores, as well as some silver ores. In addition, there are trace amounts of germanium in rocks, soils, spring water as well as some plants such as ginseng, radix angelica, medlar, aloe, lucid ganoderma, tea leaf. Germanium has been widely used in electronics, optics, chemicals, biomedicines, energy and other high-tech fields.
