The manganese tetroxide industry is relatively mature, but battery-grade manganese tetroxide still has room for development.

Trimanganese tetroxide is an oxide and an important basic raw material for electronics and new energy. It can be used to produce soft magnetic manganese-zinc ferrite, lithium battery cathode material lithium manganate, and negative temperature coefficient thermistors. In addition, with the continuous research and breakthroughs in recent years, manganese tetroxide has also been used in the fields of pigments, thermistors, oil drilling mud weighting agents and other fields, and the market demand is high.

After decades of development, my country’s manganese tetroxide production technology has gradually matured. The current methods for industrialized production mainly include metal manganese oxidation method, manganese salt method, manganese carbonate decomposition method, etc. my country’s manganese tetroxide production capacity and output rank first in the world, and domestic production capacity is mainly concentrated in Hunan, Anhui, Guizhou and other regions. The top five domestic production capacity companies account for about 88% of global production capacity.

According to the “2021-2026 China Trimanganese Tetroxide Industry Market In-depth Research and Development Prospects Forecast Report” released by the Industrial Research Center , Trimanganese tetroxide can be divided into electronic grade and battery grade, which are used to produce manganese-zinc ferrite and lithium battery cathode materials respectively. The domestic demand is high. In 2018, my country’s manganese tetroxide production capacity was approximately 110,000 tons, of which the electronic grade manganese tetroxide production capacity was as high as 98,000 tons, and the total sales volume was 78,000 tons.

In the past two years, the production technology of battery-grade manganese tetroxide has also become mature. The production processes include electrolytic manganese method and manganese salt method. The products produced have high compaction density, good capacity performance, high purity, and high application demand. Currently, domestic battery-grade manganese tetroxide manufacturers include Sinosteel Group, Dalong Huicheng New Materials, and Changsha Mining and Metallurgical Research Institute. In recent years, my country’s battery-grade manganese tetroxide production has continued to rise, reaching 24,000 tons in 2019. Sinosteel Tianyuan is the world’s leading manufacturer of high-purity manganese tetraoxide. Its operating revenue in 2020 was approximately 1.672 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.04%. In the first half of 2021, the company’s revenue was approximately 1.14 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 72.1%.

Compared with battery-grade trimanganese tetroxide, electronic-grade trimanganese tetroxide benefited from the development of the electrical appliances and new energy automobile industries in 2018, and the market demand showed a growth trend. However, with the 30,000-ton electronic-grade manganese tetroxide produced by Sichuan Zhongzhe New Materials The manganese tetroxide project has been put into operation. The domestic electronic grade manganese tetroxide market is in a state of overcapacity, and the development of the industry is not optimistic. Generally speaking, with the upgrading of electrical appliances and the development of the new energy automobile industry, there are still development opportunities in the field of battery-grade manganese tetroxide. However, there is serious overcapacity in electronic-grade manganese tetroxide, and there is little room for future development.

Industry analysts said that manganese tetroxide has a wide range of applications and benefits from the development of new energy vehicles and electrical appliance industries. In the future, battery-level Manganese tetroxide products have market development potential. my country’s manganese tetroxide production technology is mature and has become the world’s major manganese tetroxide producing country. The market concentration is high and there are few development opportunities for new enterprises.