Based on years of development and resource advantages in Yunnan province, a high-tech industrial cluster of non-ferrous metal and precious metal new materials industries has been formed in the Kunming National Hi-Tech Industries Development Zone.

The zone's non-ferrous and precious metal materials and products have formed a complete industrial system including basic and high-end raw materials, high-purity materials, special functional materials, catalytic materials, materials for information purposes, materials for chemical and biological purposes, and terminal products and components. The industrial system has been recognized as a national rare and precious metal new materials industrial base by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, making new material industries advantageous industries in the zone.

Non-ferrous metal (precious metal) material industry

In 2012, the output of the non-ferrous, rare and precious metals materials industries took up more than 50 percent of the total output of the zone. The output of the non-ferrous metal (precious metal) material industry is generally represented by major enterprises such as Yunnan Copper Industry, Yunnan Gold Mining Group and Yunnan Tin Company, whose main products include: copper (crude copper, refined copper, copper rod, copper wire material, minus plate and anode plate, silver coated copper powder, copper wire rods); tin (tin ingot, tin-lead solder, tin chemicals); zinc (zinc ingot); gold; and silver (silver ingot and electronically conducting silver paste).

Many enterprises in the non-ferrous, rare and precious metal materials industries have emerged in the zone, represented by Sino-Platinum Metals Company, Kunming Sino-Platinum Metals Catalyst Company, Kunming Sunlight Science and Technology Company, and Yunnan Copper Science & Technology Development Company.

Their main products include: copper-tin alloy, precision copper alloy strip, maxi-length wire, precious metal alloys material, microelectronic precious metal paste, precious metal chemical complex, precious metal catalyst, tin-coated alloy, and selenium products.

Other new material industries

New materials industries have also made progress in many fields, such as new chemical materials (new fine chemical materials) represented by Yunnan Reascend Technology (Group) Company's tobacco flavors and fragrances and new material cigarette holder projects; new functional materials represented by Yunnan Hengyu Optical Electronics Company's high-tech ultraviolet and infrared filter coating and low-radiation filter coating projects; new building materials of Kunming Fengdong New-tech Group Development Company's honeycomb cardboard industry project; and neo-biological materials (medical materials) represented by Yunnan Dehua Biological Pharmaceutical Company's medical soluble hemostatic gauze industry project.

Key development fields for new materials industries

During the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15), the zone will focus on the development of high-purity germanium materials, germanium components and other terminal high-tech products of Yunnan Germanium Company. The zone will also focus on precious metal special functional materials, precious metal high-purity functional materials, precious metal materials for information purposes, and precious metal environmental friendly and catalytic materials of Sino-Platinum Metals Company.

1. Photovoltaic generation germanium materials and terminal high-tech products, including the project of germanium single crystal and slices for high-efficiency solar cells, the project of gallium arsenide for high-efficiency solar cells, and the project of high-efficiency concentrator solar cells.

2. Infrared germanium lens, infrared-optical new materials, and high-tech terminal products, including the project of infrared germanium lens, the germanium chalcogenide glass optical new materials project and the vehicle infrared night-vision device (vehicle thermal imager) project.

3. Super high-purity germanium materials and high-tech terminal products, including the research and development of 13N super high-purity germanium single crystal, a production capacity of 1,000 kilograms and 2,000 coaxial high-purity germanium detectors per year.

4. Precious metal materials for special function, focusing on eight types of materials: electric contact material, brazing material, composite material, thermometrical material, gold bonding wire, catalytic mesh material, precision alloy material and evaporation materials.

5. Precious metal materials for high-purity function, focusing on the recycling and abstracting of four materials: dead catalysts for vehicle exhaust, petrochemical industry, fine chemicals industry and waste materials of precious metal alloy, as well as building six industrialized platforms for material preparation and preprocessing, fire concentration, wet leaching, refining, analysis and detection, and environmental pollutants processing.

6. Precious metal materials for information purposes, focusing on the production of conductive silver paste for printed circuits, resistor pastes, gold paste and gold paste for gas sensors.

7. Precious metal materials for environmentally-friendly usage, focusing on developing, manufacturing and selling of chemical complex, catalytic sensor, supported catalyst and electroplating of precious metal.

8. Automobile emission purification catalytic products, focusing on providing catalytic products for domestic automobile manufacturers and becoming a key research, development and manufacturing base for automobile emission-purification catalytic products in China, relying on fully automated catalyst production lines and internationally leading technology center of Sino-Platinum Metals Catalyst Company.