Nano zirconia will be widely used in mobile phones and other fields

The use of nano-zirconia in the field of mobile phones has actually been a matter of recent years, and it has achieved good results. With the approach of new transmission methods such as 5G and wireless charging, wireless frequency bands are becoming more and more complex, and metal case shielding will become a major bottleneck. . The 5G antenna with strict layout requirements needs to change the material of the existing metal casing, and ceramic and glass will become optional solutions.

At the same time, metal materials are also very unfriendly to wireless charging technology. Because most of the current wireless charging technologies use electromagnetic wave technology, and metal will cause interference to electromagnetic waves, which greatly reduces the charging efficiency.

For wireless charging, alternative materials are plastic, glass and ceramics. Plastics are prone to scratches, glass is fragile, and ceramic materials are gradually penetrating the field of smart phones with their excellent physical properties.

In 2014, Gionee Mobile launched Tianjian W808, a smart phone with nano-zirconia ceramic as the back plate material. Since then, Huawei, Xiaomi and other mobile phone manufacturers have successively launched this type of mobile phone, gradually making the back shell of nano-zirconia ceramic mobile phone known to the public.

Among them, the all-ceramic body equipped with Mi MIX chooses microcrystalline zirconium ceramic with hardness second only to sapphire as the blank. After 7 days of high temperature calcination at 1500°C, the Mohs hardness is as high as 8.5, and keys, knives, etc. will not cause any wear.

At present, VIVO, Meizu, MOTO, OnePlus and other manufacturers have begun to stock ceramic back cover phones, and iPhone is also actively sampling nano-zirconia ceramic solutions.

However, nano-zirconia has not yet been mass-produced on a large scale due to the high cost and insufficient production capacity, and the production process is relatively complicated compared to glass. Therefore, it is currently only suitable for mid-to-high-end mobile phones. In recent years, through the continuous expansion of production by manufacturers such as Sanhuan Group, Changying Precision, Sunlord Electronics, National Ceramic Materials, Byrne, and Lens Technology, the cost, yield, and capacity issues have been resolved to a certain extent. It is expected that mobile phones The ceramic back cover industry is about to start, and the tens of billions market is worth looking forward to.

It can be seen that the industry is still in its incubation period, and most manufacturers are still in the investment layout stage. According to data released by IDC, it is predicted that mobile phone shipments will reach 1.53 billion units in 2017, and will grow at a growth rate of 3.8% in the next 5 years. If the development of nano-zirconia ceramics as the back cover of the fuselage is optimistic, several major mobile phone manufacturers such as Huawei, Xiaomi, and Iphone will adopt nano-zirconia ceramic back plates on a large scale. By 2020, the market size of nano-zirconia powder in the field of ceramic mobile phone back shells It will reach about 30 billion yuan.

And in terms of market demand, domestic and foreign manufacturers of ceramic components are on the same starting line, and the field of nano-zirconia appearance parts and fingerprint identification patches will be the world of domestic manufacturers.

In the fingerprint unlocking application, the dielectric constant of nano-zirconia is 3 times that of sapphire, and the signal is more sensitive. Compared with the 0.3mm sapphire cover used in iPhone TouchID, the recognition degree of the same thickness is higher; or the same recognition degree can be thin or thick, When thickened, the strength and drop resistance will be significantly improved. It is expected that in the next 5-10 years, nano-zirconia will become the standard configuration of smart phones as fingerprint recognition.

In addition, nano-zirconia ceramics are very suitable for use in smart wearable devices, such as smart watches, bracelets, etc., due to their wear resistance, skin-friendliness and unique aesthetics. Domestic Xiaomi bracelet manufacturer Huami Technology launched Amazifit, a smart bracelet made of nano-zirconia ceramics in 2015. It is expected that more smart wearable devices made of nano-zirconia ceramics will be launched in the future.

Once, the brittleness of ceramic materials limited its application and development, and nano-ceramics is a very important way to solve the brittleness of ceramics. Experiments have proved that the ZrO2 tetragonal phase transforms into a monoclinic phase to produce microcracks and residual stress to toughen ceramics. When the ZrO2 particles are at the nanometer level, the transition temperature can drop below room temperature. Therefore, nano-ZrO2 can significantly improve the room temperature strength and stress intensity factor of ceramics, thereby doubling the toughness of ceramics. Special ultra-tough nano-nano-zirconia is widely used in bearings, bushings, valve balls, shells and other fields. It is extended to mobile terminals. Some wear parts and protective parts will also try to use this material, such as notebook bearings. The housing of a small mobile device.

Here is an excerpt from the report on the market scale of nanometer and nanometer zirconia provided by Material Ten.

After the ceramic phone back shell was "born out of the sky", with its gentle texture and non-signal shielding characteristics, it successfully attracted the attention of consumers and mobile phone manufacturers.

The huge market space of nano-zirconia has not only triggered several major domestic zirconia manufacturers to adjust their industrial structure and increase the R&D, production and market layout of nano-zirconia, but also attracted many materials people to enter the "zirconium" circle. Share this economic feast.