On September 17, the 3rd National High-Purity Alumina Conference 2026 opened in Zibo, Shandong Province. Industry experts, university scholars and enterprise representatives from across the country discussed powder performance evaluation, emerging application markets and the path of domestic substitution. Unified powder evaluation standards became one of the most-watched consensuses of the conference.

Market size: Asia-Pacific leads with steady expansion. Industry data show that the global high-purity alumina market reached about USD 3.24 billion in 2025 and is expected to grow to USD 3.41 billion in 2026 and USD 4.97 billion by 2034, representing a compound annual growth rate of about 4.8%. The Asia-Pacific region holds a dominant position with a market share of about 66.98% in 2025, with China contributing significantly to growth.

Demand structure: emerging segments are diverging rapidly. In contrast to overcapacity in metallurgical-grade alumina, demand for high-purity alumina is differentiating quickly. Lithium battery separator coatings, sapphire substrates and electronic ceramics keep growing, while spherical heat-dissipation fillers for AI servers have become the most-watched new growth driver. High-end applications share a common feature: stringent requirements on particle size distribution, dispersibility, particle morphology and batch consistency. Beyond purity, microstructural indicators are becoming the key to downstream material selection.

Evaluation standards: the industry needs a unified yardstick. Professor Pan Wei of Tsinghua University pointed out in his conference report that powder performance evaluation is a key foundation for the development of the high-purity alumina industry, and that the industry urgently needs unified evaluation standards and optimized testing methods. This judgment aligns closely with the procurement logic of downstream customers: in high-end applications, passing sample tests is only the entry threshold, and batch stability under volume production is the decisive factor for entering leading supply chains.

Domestic weakness: high-end supply remains scarce. In top-tier applications such as semiconductor targets, industry standards require crystal grain size below 50 μm to ensure film uniformity and purity above 99.9995%. Domestic high-purity alumina above 99.999% still relies on imports. Trace impurity control of sodium, potassium and iron has not yet been fully mastered, and volume-production batch consistency remains a core challenge for domestic powders.

Competition in the high-purity alumina industry has long moved beyond the single dimension of who is purer. Suppliers able to command a premium must combine high purity, a microstructure-control platform capability and long-term batch consistency at the same time. Jingci New Materials will continue to follow industry trends and, with narrow particle size distribution, good dispersibility and consistent batch performance as its core direction, provide highly stable powder solutions for customers in semiconductors, electronic ceramics, aerospace and other fields.

Data sources: China Powder Network (cnPowder), conference report of September 18, 2026 and Alumina, Not Easy of September 3, 2026.