The Development of Ceramic Fiber in China The start-up of Ceramic Fiber in China is quite late compared with other countries, in the 1970s, China established Beijing Refractory Material Factory and arranged batch-type production. In the following more than 10 years’ time, the factory only stayed in an initial stage with out-dated technology and single product. In 1984, Shougang Iron & Steel Group introduced an advanced needling ceramic fiber blanket production line from CE (a company’s name) of U.S.A.. Till 1987, Henan Shanxian Electric Appliance Factory, Guangdong Gaoming Aluminum Silicate Factory and Guiyang Refractory Material Factory imported 3 different production lines which owns the technology of advanced needling and vacuum forming from BW and Feno seperately which are both from U.S.A.. Since then, the situation of out-dated technology and single product in China has been changed. At the end of 1980s, some companies from Japan invested production line in China one after the other, batch-production of ceramic fiber and ceramic fiber textiles were underway at that time. In the early of 1990s, many cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Shandong, Henan adopted high-tech production equipment from U.S.A., France and Japan, meawhile, ceramic fiber was widely used in metallurgical industry and petrochemical field with excellent energy-saving property. Ceramic fiber also gained popularity in various kilns and furnaces. The widely-use of ceramic fiber helped the production of ceramic fiber step into a new era and also helped many companies lower their cost by a large margin. Now, ceramic fiber is in a sustainable development condition, China’s technology for dry method needling ceramic fiber blanket is at the advance level in the world. The development of many new products, for example, polycrystal alumina fiber and polycrystal mullite fiber etc. pushed this field to form a full-set product series.
