Chromium is widely used in metallurgy, chemical industry, cast iron, refractory and high-end technology because of its excellent properties such as hard and brittle, and corrosion resistance.
Chromium is hard and is often mixed into steel to make a hard and corrosion-resistant alloy. It is mainly used to refine stainless steel, heat-resistant steel and various electric heating element materials. When stainless steel encounters corrosive substances, a fine and solid chromium oxide film will be formed on the surface to protect the internal metal from further corrosion. Some stainless steels can maintain their excellent properties even at high temperatures of 800 °C. performance. Chrome steel is a good material for building machinery, tanks and armored vehicles.
Various chromium salts processed from chromite are the main raw materials in the chemical industry. Chromium salt is one of the main varieties of inorganic salts, which is widely used in daily life, mainly used in electroplating, leather tanning, printing and dyeing, medicine, fuel, catalyst, oxidant, matches and metal corrosion inhibitor, etc.
At the same time, metal chromium has been listed as one of the most important electroplating metals. In most cases, the chromium plating layer is specially used as the outermost coating of parts. The barrel, the inner wall of the gun barrel, is plated with a chromium layer of only 5/1000mm thick, but after firing thousands of shells and bullets, the chromium layer still exists. Without the physical properties provided by the chrome plating layer, the service life of most parts will be greatly shortened due to wear, corrosion, etc., and must be replaced or repaired frequently, so electrochrome plating is more and more widely used in many industrial manufacturing.
Since the melting point of chromite is as high as 1900°C-2050°C, it can maintain the same volume at high temperature and does not react with any slag. Therefore, it can be used as refractory material, lining of steelmaking furnace and non-ferrous metal smelting furnace. Therefore, in terms of refractory materials, chromite is used to make chrome bricks, chrome-magnesia bricks and other special refractory materials. In addition, chromium is also used in cast iron, such as chromium cast ductile iron, which has the characteristics of high strength, high elongation, high impact value and low hardness.
