Progress in Barium Fluoride Synthesis

The 718^th Research Institute of China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, Luo Jianzhi…

    Barium fluoride is white cubic crystal, insoluble in water and soluble in nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, acetic acid and ammonium chloride. It is stable at room temperature, but when heated to 1000℃, it begin to break up into barium oxide. With the characteristics of good moisture resistant performance, high operating temperature, excellent luminescence property, barium fluoride crystal can be used as window material for carbon dioxide devices and complete machines and other optical elements. Barium fluoride crystal, which has slow components of flicker for suppressing optical filter, can be used in nuclear medicine, high-energy physics, physics exploration and y ray astronomy. Besides, barium fluoride can also be used for making optical glass, motor brush, vacuum coating, laser generator, light-guide fibre, infrared transmitting film, welding flux, enamel, solid lubricant, rot resistance, pesticide and so on.
   American America Fluoride and Barium & Chemicals are foreign barium fluoride manufacturers. Chinese main barium fluoride manufacturers are Do-Fluoride Chemicals Co.,Ltd in Henan, NoRLi Chemical Technology Co. , Ltd in Ningbo, Mingjing Optoelectronic Co. , Ltd in Sichuan, etc. But as to quality and output, domestic companies lag behind those foreign companies. What’s more, a lot of Chinese colleges and science research institutions have made researches on the preparation and application fields of barium fluoride crystal. 
    Synthetic process and present situation are omitted.
    Barium fluoride synthesis is comparatively mature. The future development direction is the following. 1 combine barium fluoride production with other industries. Make use of fluorine source and barium source, which have more cost advantage, to turn “waste” into wealth, reduce production cost and environmental protection pressure. 2 conduct a study on the purification of barium fluoride and raw materials. Prepare high-purity barium fluoride suitable for special purposes to improve additional value of the products. 3 set high-purity barium fluoride guideposts or industrial standard including metal ion, carbon, oxygen content which influence barium fluoride use, other standards etc. 4 pay special attention to the crystal type and theory of barium fluoride. Find much more economic and reasonable crystal growth method according to different demands to enlarge its application in optical field.