China's Refractories

Abstract: An analysis of the present and of the future of the refractories industry is being presented, considering some important technical, economical, human and environmental issues, on a worldwide basis. Refractories are still needed as confinement materials to prevent heat and mass transfer losses in many diverse manufacturing industries, and will remain so, but the main challenges, this industry do need to meet, are to adjust to an overcapacity production, to cope with new needs of the customers, in particular the "outsourcing", which is a new customer / supplier relationship being adopted by many of them, and to keep the research and development alive in a more and more competitive arena. Among the direct consequences, are the need to keep the education world in refractory engineering training alive and to cope with macro and micro projects to change the image of the Refractories, from a commodity material to a sophisticated "high-tech" composite material. Some suggestions are provided in the text.

Key words: Refractory industry, Refractories, Consumption, Situation, Trend