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RHI’s sintered spinel plant at Radenthein, Austria. RHI AG |
There are certain synthetic industrial minerals that have taken time to evolve, but once established after much research and development, they have carved their niche in the market.
This is certainly the case with spinel, which only began to emerge as a force in the early 1990s, and is now established in the refractories market as a premium grade combining magnesia and alumina (see panel for brief background).
As with most synthetic minerals, by the nature of their manufacturing process and use of high purity feedstock raw materials, they do not come cheap, ranging between $800-1,800/tonne ex-works for spinel (see panel), but they do offer superlative performance characteristics.
In the refractories industry, the use of synthetic materials is increasing as the various end market manufacturing technologies demand better performing raw materials for their refractory brick...