The situation and thoughts on the exploration and development of high-purity quartz resources in China

High-purity quartz（HPQ）is an important critical mineral resource and key foundational materials for strategic emerging industries. It is widely used in high-tech fields such as photovoltaic, semiconductor, fiber optic communications, optics etc. China is the largest consumer of HPQ in the world, however, the HPQ resources are scarce, and the foreign dependence of material ore is high. It is necessary to ensure the supply of HPQ resources by prospecting for domestic resources. As the prospecting and exploration work of HPQ material started relatively late in China, a lot of work still needs to be done. This paper systematically summarizes the geological prospecting and exploration situation in recent years, and analyzes the supply and demand of HPQ and the characteristics of processing technology, the study shows: ① a series of prospecting achievements have been made in HPQ resources in China. The main types of HPQ resources newly discovered are granitic-pegmatite type and hydrothermal vein quartz. The pegmatitic type resources are mainly distributed in Altai and East Qinling, while the hydrothermal vein quartz type resources are mainly distributed in Shaanxi, Anhui, Sichuan, Shandong, etc. Based on the achievements, stable high-quality resources are expected to breakthrough. ② Although the processing technology has developed rapidly and some enterprises have formed mature beneficiation and purification technology, there are few enterprises can steadily produce high-quality HPQ on a large scale and few beneficiation and purification evaluations which are applied to geological exploration. ③ The problems restricting the exploration of HPQ include: the efficient field rapid identification technology and applicable combination of exploration methods is lacking, which lead the prospecting efficiency is low; the reasonable industrial index system of HPQ ore deposit has not been established, which restricts the estimation of resources and the delineation of ore bodies; it is difficult to carry out beneficiation and purification test in geological exploration, which lead the technical and economic evaluation difficult; there is no standard for HPQ geological exploration, which seriously restricts the exploration work. Based on the characteristics of HPQ resources and the existing problems in exploration, this paper puts forward suggestions from the aspects of research and development of efficient exploration methods, establishment of industrial indexes, research on technology of mineral processing and purification, and formulation of HPQ material exploration specifications, expecting further improvement for the quality of HPQ material exploration in China.