About Boron » Production of Boron

PRODUCTION OF BORON

 

The most important countries in the world producing boron are Turkey, USA, Argentina, Russia, China, Chile, Bolivia and Peru. World boron production was approximately 1,91 million tons B2O3 at the end of 2008.  42% of it was produced in Turkey, 35% in USA and the rest was produced in other countries. The regional distribution of boron production in 2008 is given in Table 1.

Table 1. World Boron Production by Regions, 2008

Boron ores in our country are converted to concentrated (colemanite, ulexite, tincal) and refined (boric acid, borax pentahydrate and borax decahydrate) boron products and sold to the domestic and foreign markets. Concentrates are produced in Emet, Kestelek and Bigadiç whereas refined boron products are produced in Kırka, Bandırma and Emet. Mostly, colemanite is produced among the concentrated boron products and borax pentahydrate and boric acid are produced as refined products. Ground colemanite is being produced dating from 1998, boron oxide from 2006 and calcined tincal from 2008. Studies on Eti-DOT and zinc borate production are still continuing. Tarımbor (boron in agriculture) – Ahşapbor (boron in timber) and zinc borate improved by BOREN are produced by the private sector. The distribution of all products and the refined products produced by Eti Mine Works is given in Tables 2 and 3, respectively. The distribution of the exported boron products is given in Table 4. The total and domestic sales of Eti Mine Works according to the end-uses are shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2.

Table 2. The distribution of the products produced by Eti Mine Works

Table 3. The refined products produced by Eti Mine Works

Table 4. The boron products exported by Eti Mine Works

Figure 1. The distribution of total sales of borates by end-use (Eti Mine Works)

Figure 2. The distribution of domestic sales of borates by end-use (Eti Mine Works)