Cerium nitride (CeN) is mainly used to generate inorganic composite materials. my country’s high-purity cerium nitride production capacity needs to be improved.

Cerium nitride is a nitride with the chemical formula CeN. It is composed of cerium and nitrogen elements. It appears as a brown powder and is stable in dry air. It decomposes into cerium oxide and ammonia when exposed to water and reacts with acid (dilute sulfuric acid) to form sulfuric acid. Cerium and ammonium sulfate, when heated in a hydrogen flow, can produce cerium trihydride and ammonia gas.

There are various production methods for cerium nitride, mainly including the ammonia gas reduction method, which refers to the method of using cerium (rare earth element) and ammonia as raw materials and conducting chemical reactions under high temperature conditions to generate cerium nitride; the high-temperature nitriding method refers to the method of using cerium (rare earth element) and ammonia as raw materials to produce cerium nitride. Cerium and nitrogen are used as raw materials, and a chemical reaction is carried out under high temperature conditions to generate cerium nitride; the sol-gel method refers to a method in which cerium salts and nitrogen sources are reacted through a sol-gel reaction to generate cerium nitride. Among them, high-temperature nitriding method is currently the mainstream production method of cerium nitride, which has the advantages of simple process, low cost and low impurity content.

According to 《2023-2027 China released by the Industrial Research Center Cerium nitride (CeN) industry market situation monitoring and future development prospects research report》 shows that cerium nitride is a semi- Metal conductors have excellent photocatalytic properties, anti-aging properties, corrosion resistance, chemical stability, etc., and can be used to manufacture various inorganic composite materials. They have broad development in the fields of environmental protection, energy, machinery, metal cutting, electricity, electronics and other fields. prospect.

Specifically, cerium nitride can be used as one of the key compounds in the manufacture of rare earth alumina-based ceramic composites. The downstream products are mainly ceramic sandblasting nozzles, ball valves, bearings, grinding wheels, ceramic nails, etc., which require relatively high wear resistance and mechanical strength. High-quality mechanical parts; it can be used in photocatalytic material manufacturing scenarios with good photocatalytic performance. End application fields include environmental protection fields such as organic pollutant degradation, water treatment, air purification, and energy sources such as photocatalytic hydrolysis and photocatalytic CO2 reduction. Transformation field; can be used in nitride semiconductor material manufacturing scenarios. The downstream products mainly include semiconductor lighting devices and dilute magnetic semiconductor devices.

Globally, the major companies in the cerium nitride market include American Elements, ALB Materials Inc and other international companies, as well as Xi’an Functional Materials Group, Luoyang Tongrun Nanotechnology, Shanghai Puzhen Biotechnology, Hebei Life Optoelectronics Technology, Zhuzhou Chinese companies such as Hengma High-tech Materials and Qinghe County Xinbao Alloy Materials.

Industry analysts said that from the domestic market, there are a large number of cerium nitride manufacturers in my country, but Most of them are small and medium-sized enterprises, and the purity of their products is not high, mostly at 2N level. In recent years, under the background of rapid development of downstream markets, the continuous escalation of demand for high-performance composite materials has prompted the continuous improvement of cerium nitride purity requirements. Therefore, in the future, local companies will need to continue to upgrade their production processes to promote the continuous improvement of domestic production capacity of high-purity cerium nitride of 3N grade and above, and there will be huge room for industry growth.