Abstract:
Indium has precious little reserves in the earthcrust as a scattered metal, and has characteristics of extremely concentrated reserves and production. Indium plays an extremely important role in the development of strategic emerging industries. As an indispensable raw material for flat panel display, electronic semiconductor and photovoltaic industries, indium has become the focused issue of many countries. The global indium mineral resources are concentrated in a few countries such as China, Bolivia, and Russia. Japan, Republic of Korea and the United States are the most important indium consumers and the major importers of China's native indium. Indium is a superior mineral resource in, and China has been the biggest primary indium production country in the world for many years. However, the secondary recycling and downstream application industries are still in the initial stage, domestic indium production and consumption are unbalanced, and the supply exceeds demand for a long time. At present, the domestic industries of flat-panel and photovoltaic are developing rapidly, and indium-tin oxide (ITO) manufacturing technology has been making breakthroughs continuously, China will become a pure importer of indium in the future. It is recommended to vigorously develop the domestic recycled indium industry, establish the indium reserve mechanism, and strengthen the capacity cooperation with other important resource countries to ensure the domestic resource demand for the development of strategic emerging industries.