Current Status and Development Trends of China's Silver Nitrate Industry Technology Market [SMM Silver Conference]

On May 16, at the 2025 SMM (6th) Silver Industry Chain Innovation Conference, hosted by SMM Information & Technology Co., Ltd. (SMM), co-organized by Ningbo Haoshun Precious Metals Co., Ltd. and Quanda New Materials (Ningbo) Co., Ltd., and supported by sponsors including Fujian Zijin Precious Metals Materials Co., Ltd., Huizhou Yian Precious Metals Co., Ltd., Jiangsu Jiangshan Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Zhengzhou Jinquan Mining and Metallurgical Equipment Co., Ltd., Hunan Shengyin New Materials Co., Ltd., Zhejiang Weida Precious Metals Powder Materials Co., Ltd., Guangxi Zhongma Zhonglianjin Cross-border E-commerce Co., Ltd., Suzhou Xinghan New Materials Technology Co., Ltd., Yongxing Zhongsheng Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd., IKOI S.p.A., Hunan Zhengming Environmental Protection Co., Ltd., Kunshan Hongfutai Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd., and Shandong Humon Smelting Co., Ltd., Wu Chao, the Executive Director/Director of the Silver Compounds and Materials Preparation Laboratory at the Nanyang Silver New Materials Engineering Technology Research Center/Tongbai Hongxin New Materials Co., Ltd., shared insights on the theme of "Current Status and Development Trends of China's Silver Nitrate Industry Technology Market."

1. Overview of the Silver Nitrate Industry

Basic Properties of Silver Nitrate

►Characteristics and Functions of Silver Nitrate

Appearance: Silver nitrate appears as colorless, transparent orthorhombic crystals or white crystals, with unique physical characteristics.

Strong Oxidizing Properties: Silver nitrate is a strong oxidizing agent, exhibiting significant oxidizing capabilities in chemical reactions.

Solubility: Silver nitrate is highly soluble in water and alkalis, slightly soluble in C₂H₅OC₂H₅. Its solubility characteristics influence its range of applications.

Major Application Areas of Silver Nitrate

PV Applications: The importance of silver powder in PV silver paste is undeniable, with over 95% of the world's PV silver powder produced using the liquid-phase reduction method with silver nitrate as the raw material.

Electronics Applications: Used in various components and electrical contact materials in the microelectronics industry, as well as a common reagent in analytical chemistry.

Catalysts: In domestic petrochemical enterprises, thousands of tons of silver catalysts are used annually.

Pharmaceutical Industry: Used as anti-inflammatory and corrosive agents, such as burn ointments and medical disinfectant gauzes.

Environmental Protection and Resource Recovery: Removes chloride ions from wastewater (forming silver chloride precipitate) or acts as a precipitant for heavy metal ions (such as sulphides); silver recovery technologies for silicon wafer cutting wastewater and electroplating wastewater in the PV industry (e.g., ion exchange, electrolysis).

Chemical and Analytical Detection: Serves as a precursor for preparing other silver compounds (e.g., silver ammonium nitrate, silver oxide) and silver nanomaterials (e.g., silver nanoparticles, nanowires).

Photographic Materials: Over 50% of the world's silver is used in manufacturing photographic materials. Silver salts, with silver nitrate as the base material, form the photosensitive layer in photographic materials.

Mirror Manufacturing: Silver-coated glass has excellent reflectivity, with the best mirrors currently made using silver, with silver nitrate as the base material.

2. Current Status of the Technology Market

Current Status of Production Processes

Characteristics of Traditional Processes: Traditional silver nitrate production processes are relatively simple to operate and require less sophisticated equipment. However, they suffer from low production efficiency, high energy consumption, and limited product purity. For example, using simple dissolution and evaporation processes results in long production cycles and incomplete removal of impurities.

Difficulties in Capacity Expansion: Capacity expansion is constrained by multiple factors, with aging equipment and outdated processes being the main reasons. Existing production lines are difficult to expand on a large scale, and intelligent upgrades are challenging. The high cost and long cycle of building new production lines make it difficult for most enterprises to meet the rapidly growing market demand.

Directions for Process Improvement: Process improvement focuses on enhancing production efficiency and product quality while reducing energy consumption and environmental pollution. This can be achieved by introducing automated control systems to precisely control reaction conditions and developing new catalysts to optimize reaction pathways, thereby achieving green and efficient production.

Current Status of Quality Control

Quality Standard System: China has established a relatively comprehensive quality standard system for silver nitrate, specifying indicators such as purity and impurity content. For example, national standards set clear limits for silver content, chloride, sulfate, and other impurities in different grades of silver nitrate to ensure stable product quality.

Detection Technologies: Various technologies are used to detect the quality of silver nitrate, including chemical analysis and spectroscopic analysis. Chemical analysis can accurately determine silver and impurity content, while spectroscopic analysis can quickly and sensitively detect trace impurities, providing a reliable basis for quality control.

Quality Improvement Measures: Quality improvement measures include optimizing production processes, strengthening raw material quality control, and improving detection procedures. Strictly screening raw materials to reduce impurity introduction, strengthening monitoring during production to adjust process parameters in a timely manner, and increasing detection frequency and items to ensure products meet high standards.

Current Status and Analysis of Patent Applications

From 2023 to 2024, patent applications in the silver nitrate field exhibited characteristics of "preparation process dominance, accelerated environmental protection technology, and rising equipment innovation." Optimization of preparation processes and equipment dominated, while environmental protection technology became a competitive focus. Future technological breakthroughs may further concentrate on high-purity production, green synthesis, and new energy applications.

Current Major Silver Nitrate Standards in China

Chemical Reagent Silver Nitrate Standard: The chemical reagent silver nitrate standard GB/T 670-2007 specifies multiple indicators, including content, appearance, and pH value. For example, it has clear provisions for clarity, chloride, sulfate, and other impurities, providing detailed criteria for quality control of chemical reagent silver nitrate.

Industrial Silver Nitrate Standard: The industrial silver nitrate standard GB/T 44758-2024 classifies quality into three grades: first, second, and third. In addition to common indicators such as content and appearance, it also specifies requirements for silver ammonia solution reactions and various impurities such as Cu and Fe to ensure industrial application quality. It will be officially implemented on May 1, 2025.

Photographic Silver Nitrate Standard: The photographic silver nitrate standard YS/T 476-2002 is formulated based on the special needs of the photographic industry for silver nitrate. It has specific requirements for content and impurities to meet the strict quality standards of photographic silver nitrate for photographic materials.

Market Competition Pressures

Supply and Demand Analysis of China's Silver Nitrate Market: China's silver nitrate market entered an investment peak period starting in 2023, with the capacity of 16 key silver nitrate planning projects included in statistics reaching 52,200 mt from 2023 to 2025. Although the market demand for silver nitrate continues to grow, it lags far behind the pace of capacity expansion, leading to increasingly significant overcapacity issues and intensifying competition among enterprises.

Significant price fluctuation risks for silver, with an amplitude of ±34% in the past three years. In particular, silver prices have remained high in recent years, leading to a sharp increase in costs and seriously affecting the stability of corporate profits. To avoid risks, enterprises have to be cautious in reinvesting and controlling costs, indirectly affecting R&D progress and delaying technological updates.

3. Development Trends Outlook

Demand Analysis in Application Areas

With the continuous implementation of new energy policies and the decline in the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for PV in countries worldwide, the global PV market continues to expand, and new PV installations continue to increase, driving up the demand for silver nitrate in the solar cell sector. In 2024, the proportion of silver nitrate used in global PV silver paste has already
Accounting for 34% of the total production, China, as the world's largest producer of PV modules, contributed 62% of the procurement volume. This proportion is expected to rise from 34% to 45% by 2030.

New Energy Penetration Increase: The technological penetration rate of new energy batteries is projected to increase from 12% in 2025 to 28% in 2030. The primary driving force behind this growth is the sharp increase in demand for materials in the battery industry, which will become a major driver for the growth in silver nitrate market demand.

Electronics Industry Process Upgrade: In the electronics industry, the upgrade of silver-plating processes for communication devices in 5G base stations and the rapid growth of the AI industry have led to a surge in demand for high-purity silver nitrate. This drives the development of silver nitrate for electronic applications towards higher quality and more advanced technologies.

Breakthroughs in Biomedicine: In the biomedical field, due to breakthroughs in antibacterial coating technology, the penetration rate of silver nitrate solutions in antibacterial coating-related products is expected to increase from 18% in 2024 to 35% in 2030. This will drive the average annual growth rate of the market size for pharmaceutical-grade silver nitrate to reach 12.2%.

Market-Driven Technological Advancements

1. Green and Environmentally Friendly Technologies: Membrane separation technology is widely applied in silver nitrate production, with nanofiltration membranes removing macromolecular impurities and ion exchange membranes enabling silver ion recovery. New-type enterprises have adopted these technologies on a large scale, reducing silver ion emissions in wastewater from 0.05 mg/L to 0.01 mg/L and achieving a wastewater reuse rate of 85%.

2. Intelligent Production Technologies: Microreactor technology offers significant advantages, utilizing continuous flow reactions with precise temperature control (±1℃). This reduces reaction time from 6 hours to 45 minutes and increases the capacity utilisation rate to 85%. It also reduces energy consumption by 30%, limits impurity residues to ≤5 ppm, and achieves a silver recovery rate of 98.5%.

3. High-Performance Product Technologies: Continuous crystallization processes are becoming increasingly popular, employing multi-stage low-temperature vacuum crystallization (-10℃~5℃) to increase single-line capacity by 40%. This process enhances purity from 99.5% to 99.99% and reduces unit energy consumption and production costs.

Industrial Policy Constraints and Opportunities

Environmental Protection Policy Orientation: Environmental protection policy orientation encourages silver nitrate enterprises to adopt green production processes, reduce pollutant emissions, and improve resource utilization. For instance, in recent years, environmental protection authorities have mandated that enterprises meet heavy metal content standards in wastewater discharge, prompting enterprises to improve their production processes. Related investments in technological transformation have increased average costs for small enterprises by approximately 15%.

Policy Support Opportunities

Policy support opportunities provide a boost to the development of the silver nitrate industry. The government offers tax incentives, financial support, and other policies to environmentally friendly and high-tech enterprises, providing strong guarantees for the development of the silver nitrate industry.

Safety Policy Requirements

Safety policy requirements are becoming increasingly stringent, covering aspects such as product quality and production safety. Enterprises need to establish a comprehensive quality management system and a safe production system to ensure that products meet national standards. For example, the issue of dedicated vehicle transportation for silver nitrate products has increased production costs by 5-10%.

Finally, it introduced the general situation of Tongbai Hongxin New Materials Co., Ltd., its work in standard formulation, market advantages, and the development of Hongxin New Materials' silver nitrate.

》Click to view the special report on the 2025 SMM (6th) Silver Industry Chain Innovation Conference