Minor metals belong to nonferrous metals and just get small reserves, so it is called minor metals. Although the quantity is minor, it covers many kinds of metals as below. They play important roles in different industries, for example semiconductor, catalyst, solar cell, smelting, alloys, super alloys, hard alloys, chemicals, gold refining, optical materials and so on. Rare Earths belong to minor metals too. China is main source of various rare earths.
The first reserves of indium is in China, which take 90% of worldwide supplies. Indium is mainly used in display, LCD, FPD, low-melting-point alloys, solder, semiconductors and vacuum coating. It is mainly from byproduct of lead zinc ore. It is available in forms as wires, foils, powder, granular, sputtering targets and so on.
Tungsten own the highest melting point that is 3410℃. It is raw material for hard alloys, special steels and tungsten filament. It is available in forms as wires, foils, powder, granules, rods, sputtering targets and so on.
Germanium gets wide applications in optical fibre communication, night-vision device, thermal imager, oil catalyst, solar cells and so on. It is available in forms as powder, shots, cubes and so on.
Vanadium is with melting point 3380℃, so it forms stable carbide compound(V4C3) with C elements in steels. V could refining the structure and crystalline grains of steel and increase coarsening temperature of crystalline grains. It enhances the property of steel significantly. Vanadium strengthen intensity, tenacity, resistance to corrosion, abrasive resistance and bearing impact load.
