China's high-precision silicon nitride bearing balls are highly dependent on imports, and there is more room for localized substitutes in the future

Silicon nitride bearing ball is a bearing ball made of silicon nitride. The product has the advantages of good thermal stability, corrosion resistance, wear resistance, self-lubricating, etc., and its service life is much higher than that of ordinary bearing balls. It is manufactured at high-end The application demand in the fields of industry, wind power generation, aerospace, etc. is high.

Due to the rapid development of the global new energy industry in recent years, the continuous growth of wind equipment shipments has prompted the global demand for silicon nitride bearing balls to continue to rise, and the market size has increased accordingly, reaching 480 million US dollars in 2019, and further scale by 500 million US dollars in 2020.

According to the "Research Report on the Application Market Demand and Development Opportunities of China's Silicon Nitride Bearing Ball Industry from 2021-2026" issued by the New Sijie Industry Research Center, the more well-known silicon nitride bearing ball manufacturers in the world include Japan's NSK and the United States, companies like CoorsTek and Toshiba Ceramics have a relatively high market share in the global and Chinese markets due to their high brand awareness, rich product categories and better quality.

With the rapid development of China’s industry, domestic silicon nitride bearing ball manufacturers are also growing. Representative companies include Sinoma High-tech, Shanghai Fanlian, and Shanghai Materials Research Institute, but they are limited by production technology. There is a certain gap between the quality of silicon nitride bearing balls in my country and foreign countries. At present, 80% of high-end silicon nitride bearing balls have to be imported. In the future, there is more room for substitution in the high-end market for silicon nitride bearing balls.

Silicon nitride powder is the raw material for the production of silicon nitride bearing balls. The current synthesis methods of silicon nitride powder include silicon powder nitriding method and chemical synthesis method. At present, the main domestic use of silicon powder nitriding method and chemical synthesis, compared with the powder prepared by the method, the powder prepared by the latter has higher purity, better sphericity, higher sintering activity, and lower influence of silicon raw materials, making it the first choice for preparing high-performance silicon nitride bearing balls.

In the world, the Japanese company UBE is a company that can use chemical synthesis to produce silicon nitride powder on a large scale, but the company strictly restricts its supply to Chinaand is limited by the supply of raw materials.

The accuracy of silicon nitride bearing balls can be classified into G10～G2 grades according to national standards. With the support of national policies, local enterprises have made breakthroughs in the production technology of silicon nitride bearing balls. At present, domestic silicon nitride bearing balls are mainly concentrated in G5 grades. Some enterprises can reach G3 level. In the world, silicon nitride bearing ball manufacturers, such as Japan’s Tsubaki Nakajima, AKS, Sweden’s SKF, etc., can produce products with a precision of G3 and G2. The products produced by them have low noise, long life, and high speed, which are favored by the market.

Industry analysts said that as an important part of high-end equipment, silicon nitride bearing balls are used in wind power equipment, aerospace and other fields. With the development of the terminal industry, the market demand for silicon nitride bearing balls continues to rise. In terms of production, due to technology and raw material constraints, the precision of silicon nitride bearing balls in China is concentrated in G5, while overseas companies have been able to mass-produce silicon nitride bearing ball products with precision of G3 and G2. The country’s high-end nitride market demand for silicon bearing balls relies on imports, and there is more room for domestic products in the future.