A view of Korea Zinc’s Onsan Smelter (Photo courtesy of Korea Zinc)
Korea Zinc announced on Dec. 29 that it recently submitted an application to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources requesting the designation of its rare metal concentration and recovery technology utilizing integrated zinc, lead, and copper processes as a national core technology.
Rare metals are essential materials for high-tech and defense industries, with major countries and companies worldwide accelerating efforts to build supply chains. The technology for which Korea Zinc seeks national core technology status this time is a production technology that recovers core minerals including bismuth, indium, antimony, and tellurium by circulating and concentrating byproducts generated from zinc, lead, and copper smelting processes in integrated operations, rather than simply discarding them. The concentration rate can be maximized by repeatedly reprocessing byproducts from one smelting process together with byproducts from other smelting processes.
Korea Zinc produces the most indium in the world, which is used in semiconductor, electronics, and aerospace industries. Korea Zinc’s annual indium production reached 92 tons as of last year. Korea Zinc is also responsible for approximately 30% of indium imported by the United States.
In particular, Korea Zinc’s technology is an integrated process technology that encompasses various rare metal extraction and manufacturing processes, and also includes antimony manufacturing technology as part of it. As the importance of antimony grew due to global export restrictions and other factors, Korea Zinc applied for the designation of ‘antimony metal manufacturing technology using diaphragm electrolysis technology’ as a national core technology in November last year. However, the designation of that technology as a national core technology was canceled in May amid the management control dispute between Korea Zinc and the alliance of Young Poong and MBK Partners.
Korea Zinc stated, “We plan to firmly respond to all attempts to interfere with our technology protection efforts and to leak Korea Zinc’s technology and assets to the outside through hostile mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and exits,” adding, “We will do our best in national core technology protection efforts together with the government to respond to technology theft attempts by third parties.”
