About the Author

XIE Youqing was born in December in 1937 and graduated from the Central-South Inst. Min. Metall. in 1962, then got to Jilin University for advance metal physics from 9/1961 to 2/1964. Now he is a tutor of Ph.D. students in the field of Materials Physics and Chemistry, which is one of the State Key Disciplines, professor of State Key Laboratory of Powder Metallurgy in Central South University, at the same time, had been Vice-Chairman of the Seventh Hunan Province Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee, of the Ninth and Tenth Hunan People’s Congress of Standing Committee, as well as a member of the Ninth and Tenth National People’s Congress Standing Committee.

He has devoted himself to establishing the Systematic Science of Metallic Materials, accomplished many projects of National Natural Science Foundation of China and Hunan province’s key science, was awarded prizes of the State Scientific General Meeting, Hunan Province’s Scientific General Meeting and Hunan First Level Science and Technology Advance.

Preface

Nowadays, nonferrous metals have become the important material basis for the development of national economic, science and technology, national defense and so on, and are the key strategic resources for enhancing the comprehensive national strength and national security. As a nonferrous metals production superpower, the nonferrous metals research field in China has made great progress, particularly in the development and utilization of complex and low-grade nonferrous metals resources.

The nonferrous metals industry in China has developed rapidly in the recent 30 years. The production has been the maximal in the world year after year. The science and technology of nonferrous metals is playing an increasingly important role in the national economic construction and the modernization of national defense. At the same time, the contradiction between the shortage of nonferrous metals resources and the economic development is increasingly serious. The dependence on foreign resources has been increasing year by year, which seriously affects the healthy development of our national economy.

With the economic development, high-quality mineral resources have proven to be nearly depleted. This makes China face the crisis of critical shortage of the total supply of nonferrous metals. Furthermore,when the complex and low-grade mineral resources or secondery raw materials, which have the characteristics of difficult exploration,difficult mining, difficult processing and difficult metallurgy, gradually become the main resources, a huge challenge will be exerted on the traditional science and technology, such as geology, mining, mineral processing, metallurgy,materials, processing, and enviroment. The nonferrous metals industry and related industries are facing the competition for the survival of the crisis due to low-quality resources. The development of nonferrous metals industry urgently needs new theories and new technologies to adapt to the characteristics of the resources. The publication of nonferrous metals books that own complete system, leading level and mutual integration will improve the independent innovation ability of the nonferrous metals industry and promote the application of new theories and new technologies of high-efficiency, low consumption, non-pollution and comprehensive utilization of

the nonferrous metals resources. It will play a vital role in ensuring the sustainable development of the nonferrous metals industry in China.

As a major national publication project, the Series of Theoretical and Technological Frontiers of Nonferrous Metals plan to publish 100 kinds of books, which cover materials, metallurgy, mining, earth science, mechanical and electrical engineering and so on. The authors of these books include academicians who work in the field of nonferrous metals, chief scientists of major national research projects, Yangtze River Scholars, winners of China National Funds for Distinguished Young Scientists, winners of the National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation, talented persons selected by major national talent programs, leading experts in large-scale research institutes of nonferrous metals and key enterprises.

The National Publication Foundation established by the state is to encourage and support the publication of outstanding public service works that represent the highest level of the national academic publication. The Series of Theoretical and Technological Frontiers of Nonferrous Metals will aim at the frontiers of nonferrous metals and grasp the latest development of nonferrous metals at home and abroad. They will comprehensively, promptly and accurately reflect the new theories, new technologies and new applications of nonferrous metals, and explore and capture the highly valuable research achievements, thus owning high academic values.

The Central South University Press has devoted long-term effort to publishing books of nonferrous metals. A lot of very effective work has been done in the course of publishing the Series of Theoretical and Technological Frontiers of Nonferrous Metals. This will vigorously promote the publication of outstanding scientific and technological works in the nonferrous metals industry, and play a direct and significant role in cultivating personnel of the nonferrous metals disciplines in the universities, research institutes and enterprises of China.

王淀佐

Wang Dianzuo

Dec 2010