Ceramic Valves Widely Recognized in the Soda Ash Industry

The soda ash industry is an important basic chemical raw-material industry. Soda ash products serve as fundamental industrial raw materials supporting national economic development. China's soda ash products maintain strong competitiveness in the international soda ash market.

At present, domestic soda ash enterprises mainly adopt the ammonia-soda process and the combined soda process for production. The ammonia-soda process produces soda ash using salt and limestone as main raw materials and ammonia as an intermediate auxiliary material. The combined soda process produces soda ash together with ammonium chloride, using ammonia, carbon dioxide and raw salt from synthetic-ammonia units as raw materials. Both production processes share similar challenges during soda ash and ammonium chloride manufacturing: long process flows, relatively high system mother-liquor temperatures, and complex medium compositions. The media not only contain ammonia and high chloride ion content, but also a certain amount of calcium- and magnesium-bearing solid matter. Especially during environmental treatment of waste discharge, equipment, pipelines and valves suffer extremely severe corrosion and abrasion, leading to frequent equipment and valve failures and maintenance. Therefore, improving the anti-corrosion and wear-resistance performance of equipment is crucial for safe and stable operation, and valves, as fluid-control components, bear the brunt of these demands.

Engineering ceramics, as a new material of the 21st century, have been favored by developed countries since World War II due to their high hardness, high strength, high wear resistance and good anti-corrosion properties. These countries invested heavily in manpower and resources to develop engineering ceramics, which were first applied in the military and aerospace industries and later gradually extended to industrial fields such as ceramic valves and ceramic ball valves. It was not until the early 1990s, with the improvement of ceramic material properties, that ceramics began to be applied in the chemical industry and gained wide recognition.

Ceramic ball valves are high-tech products independently developed by Shenzhen Juchang Precision, leveraging the strong-corrosion resistance and high-wear-resistance advantages of structural ceramics with advanced structural design. They can be manufactured according to GB, DIN, JIS, API and other standards, offering exceptional anti-corrosion and wear-resistance performance. They significantly enhance corrosion resistance, erosion resistance and high-temperature resistance, greatly extending valve service life in chemical industries such as soda ash and ammonium chloride production. They improve safety and stability of supporting equipment systems, reduce workers' labor intensity, save maintenance costs and deliver good economic benefits. They are ideal replacements for wear-resistant and corrosion-resistant metal valves with extremely high promotion value. Currently widely applied across various chemical industries, they minimize leakage to the greatest extent and make positive contributions to environmental protection, representing one of the important future development directions of the valve market.

Product Performance Advantages:

• All medium-contacting parts are made of structural ceramic materials with extremely high chemical stability and hardness (Rockwell hardness HRC90). Therefore, this valve delivers ultra-high wear resistance, corrosion resistance and erosion resistance, along with good thermal insulation and minimal thermal expansion.

• The ceramic ball valve ball is manufactured with advanced lapping equipment and processes, featuring high roundness precision and excellent surface quality. After paired lapping with the valve seat, excellent sealing performance is achieved by utilizing the self-lubricating property of ZrO₂ ceramics.

• Completely overcomes the drawbacks of metal hard-seal valves including easy leakage, high torque and poor corrosion resistance of sealing surfaces.

• Thanks to excellent ceramic wear resistance, ceramic ball valves are durable, highly reliable and long-lasting, with service life 2-4 times that of titanium alloy valves and Monel valves.

• For high-hardness particle media, or media containing soft particles with corrosive properties, this product holds incomparable absolute advantages and is currently the preferred valve type for such media.