Antimony and its role in the IT sphere
We continue to talk about various chemical elements, their role in IT and, of course, the patent aspect. This time we will talk about antimony, which in the near future may become the new gold for China. Why? We will tell you about this in detail in our material.
A Brief History of Antimony
Antimony (Stibium, Sb) is one of the oldest semi-metals known to man.
In the countries of the East it was used approximately 3000 years BC for making vessels. In Ancient Egypt already in the 19th century BC, antimony glitter powder (natural Sb2S3) under the name mesten or stem was used to blacken eyebrows. In Ancient Greece it was known as “stimi” or “stibi” (there are different versions of the spelling, and in modern Greek the sound “b” is rendered by a combination of the letters “mu” and “pi”), which led to the Latin stibium, which was included in the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements of D. I. Mendeleyev.
The medieval European metallurgist Agricola (1494-1555) wrote: “If by fusion a certain portion of antimony is added to lead, a typographic alloy is obtained, from which the font used by those who print books is made.” The properties and methods of obtaining antimony, its preparations and alloys were first described in detail in Europe in the famous book “The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony”, published in 1604.
Consumption
The areas of application of antimony changed as scientific and technological progress developed. Since ancient times, antimony gave strength to such soft metals as gold, copper, tin and lead. It was in the bronze weapons of the ancient Greeks and in the lead water pipes that, as they say, first destroyed the Romans. Its main application after the invention of printing was lead font. In addition to the ability to fuse with any metal – it is not for nothing that alchemists depicted it as an all-devouring wolf – antimony has a very important and rare property among metals: when it hardens, it expands. The alloy of lead and antimony filled the casting mold perfectly, and the font turned out clear and strong.
Today, the main use of antimony is adding its oxide to plastics to reduce their flammability: this is where a third of its annual production goes. Antimony is found in polyvinyl chloride, impact-resistant polystyrene, and acrylonitrile. These include plastic housings of all kinds of household appliances, printed circuit board material, wire insulation, and housings of capacitors and other electronic components.
In electronics, antimony could replace indium as a component of the transparent electrode of a liquid crystal display (LCD) – currently made from a thin film of tin oxide with indium. But such electrodes are also needed for solar panels or artificial photosynthesis devices, in which sunlight does not produce electricity but decomposes water.
Night vision devices, explosives, flashlights, infrared sensors can also be mentioned.
Extraction from the subsoil and the world market of antimony
Geological reserves, according to the Geological Faculty of Moscow State University make up about 3.4 million tons.
China currently holds 32% of antimony reserves and about 80% of world production. In addition, Thailand, Bolivia and Russia also have relatively large reserves of antimony. The main raw material source of antimony in Russia is complex gold-antimony deposits of vein quartz gold-antimonite geological-industrial type, where the main ore mineral is antimonite (antimony sulfide). Of secondary importance are deposits where antimony can be incidentally extracted from complex sulfides of lead, copper, bismuth, silver and other metals.
Annual world production is up to 195,000 tons of 100% Sb/year) with China (79% of the market), Russia and Tajikistan (up to 10%) leading the way. Mining of small volumes of antimony raw materials is also carried out in Australia, Bolivia, Turkey and Myanmar. In the USA, approximately 2 thousand tons (1% of the world).
According to research Stibium Target Market, Global Outlook and Forecast 2024-2030 The global antimony market has witnessed rapid growth in recent years, driven by rising environmental concerns, government incentives and advancements in technology.
The market drivers are display industry And solar energy.
Patent aspect
The Google.Patents portal lists 100,000 documents for the word stibium.
Among patent holders, the TOP 5 leaders were:
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. — 4.8%;
Macronix (旺宏电子股份有限公司) — 2.9%;
Eastman Chemical Company — 1.4%;
Jiangsu Hengli Chemical Fiber Co., Ltd (江苏恒力化纤股份有限公司) — 0.8%/
As you can see, the undisputed leader is South Korean Samsung. Our short rating also includes companies from the USA, China and Taiwan.
Popular patent topics within the International Patent Classification are as follows:
miscellaneous equipment Y10T – 15.9%;
the use of inorganic or low-molecular organic substances as components for compositions based on high-molecular compounds C08K – 15.8%;
semiconductor devices H01L – 15.1%;
compositions of high-molecular compounds C08L – 13.1%;
high-molecular compounds obtained by means other than reactions involving only unsaturated carbon-carbon bonds C08G – 12.7%.
Antimony in electronics does not lead in world patents. However, the IT theme is represented by three significant positions: H01L; H10N And H10B. So, in the subsection H01L semiconductor devices Google.patent has issued over 22,000 documents. Examples include:
And what about Russia?
The FIPS database for “antimony” contains a significant number of 1014 Russian patents for inventions, of which only 372 are operational. Most of the 34 units in the “H” electricity section are devoted to electric batteries (No. 2602825), thermoelectric devices and converters (No. 2798434, No. 2806010, etc.), terahertz radiation detectors (for example, No. 2808395), high-voltage varistor ceramics (No. 2712822), fire-resistant electric cables (No. 2816163), etc.
By subclass “semiconductor devices” H01L» 11 Russian Federation patents from a number of Moscow organizations, such as: the Sapphire plant, the Scientific and Technological Center for Microelectronics and Submicron Heterostructures of Microelectronics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Technological Institute of Superhard and New Carbon Materials (TISNUM), etc., with publication in 2012-2023.
There are 56 Russian patents for utility models, 2 of which are valid:
No.190587 semiconductor device and No.214697 silicon structure with dielectric insulation from ZAO Silicon El Group (Bryansk),
There are 4 computer programs, 2 of which are on electronics:
No.2021662933 — “Software for computer modeling of thermoelectric properties of composites based on solid solutions of bismuth-antimony and graphene (GRAGHen-pro)” from NN Technology LLC;
No.2021666349 — “Software for mathematical modeling of the process of thermoelectric cooling of a laser diode and the body of the optical head of a multi-pass polarimeter for chiral detection of gases and liquids in various operating modes” from KDP LLC.
Database of 9 items, mainly on ecology.
There are no integrated circuit topologies.
Conclusion
Antimony is one of the strategic raw materials of the Russian Federation, however, antimony is not considered a scarce substance. Antimony mining in Russia is carried out on a moderate scale in Yakutia, and antimony concentrates are mainly exported. In fact, antimony in Russia is excessive due to the weak development of the electronics industry and neglect of solar energy. Needs of Russian enterprises are provided largely due to the import of finished products from friendly China.
But for the US and the EU, antimony is a critical mineral raw material.
China has literally recently dramatically changed the structure of the world antimony market. It has decided to introduce a licensing system for its export, as well as related technologies and equipment, from September 15. This was stated in a statement by the Ministry of Commerce and the State Administration of Customs of the People's Republic of China, published in mid-August.The introduction of export controls on antimony and superhard materials related goods is a common international practice. The measure is not targeted at any particular country or region. If the purpose of the export is in accordance with the rules, the export will be allowed.“,” the Xinhua news agency quotes the statement as saying.
It is noted that the restrictions apply to organic antimony compounds with a purity exceeding 99.999%, and technologies related to antimony, including the technology of smelting and separating gold and antimony. The measure also applies to substances and technologies related to superhard materials.
As the Ministry of Commerce emphasized, the new export control system is designed to “better protect national security and fulfill international obligations“.
It is noted that the United States can find antimony reserves in other countries, but the creation of production lines takes time and technology, and this is not an easy task. Thus, after China banned the export of gallium and germanium more than a year ago, there has been no news from the United States about the deployment of mining and production lines for these two metals.
Thus, antimony has become an effective weapon in the electronic wars between China and Western countries.
