Zinc Ingot

Overview

Zinc ingot is refined zinc cast into standard bars, the tradeable form of a metal whose importance to modern infrastructure is largely invisible: most zinc never appears as a finished product in its own right, but instead as a thin protective coating on steel. Refined zinc is graded by purity, with Special High Grade (SHG), at 99.995% zinc or better, the standard reference grade used for exchange trading and for the most demanding applications.

Galvanizing and Other Uses

Galvanizing — coating steel with a layer of zinc, either by hot-dip immersion or electroplating — is by a wide margin zinc's largest end use worldwide, because zinc corrodes preferentially to steel and physically blocks moisture and oxygen from reaching the steel underneath, protecting structures, vehicles, appliances and fencing from rust for decades longer than uncoated steel would last. That single application explains why zinc demand tracks construction and infrastructure activity almost as closely as steel itself does — wherever galvanized steel is used, there's a corresponding zinc input behind it.

Beyond galvanizing, zinc is a key component of die-casting alloys used to manufacture precisely shaped small parts — door handles, automotive components, electronic housings — valued for how easily molten zinc alloy flows into fine mould detail. It's also alloyed with copper to make brass, and used in various chemical and battery applications, though none of these secondary uses approach galvanizing's share of total demand.

Production and Major Producers

Zinc is typically produced from sulfide ores through a roast-leach-electrowin process, in which crushed ore concentrate is roasted, dissolved, and then electrolytically refined into pure metal — a process similar in principle to copper electrorefining. China is by far the largest producer and consumer of zinc, reflecting its dominant steel and manufacturing base, while other significant producers include Peru, Australia and South Korea, home to Korea Zinc's Onsan smelter, one of the largest single zinc-refining complexes in the world.