Lignite wax is a scarce mineral product. Germany firstly started to distill the wax from lignite in 1897. Lignite wax is also called Montan wax. It is a kind of mineral wax containing wax, resin and land asphalt.

Physical & chemical characters: higher melting point (83~86℃), stronger chemical stability, weaker conductivity, acid resisting property, high intensity, high surface smoothness and has no carcinogen.

1. Application
　(1) Daily use chemical industry: the deeply processed refined product of lignite wax can be used for making specially good effect cosmetics, such as lipstick, cream, fixature, the quantity is very large;
  (2) Precision casting industry: as moderate & high temperature wax mould, the wax can improve the precision and smoothness of casts;
  (3) Rubber, plastic & textile industry: to be used as lubricant, especially in PVC engineering plastic industry, used for molding & anti-adhering lubricant;
  (4) Paper-making industry: to be used as sizing agent;
  (5) Electronic industry: to be used as insulated material of making electrical wire & cable, and as the additive of making damp-proofing agent, preservative, anti-adhesion, anti-aging protective agent for capacitor material;
  (6) Printing industry: can be used as coating for making high-speed printing inks, carbon paper and typing stencil paper due to no easy klizoglyph, no proliferation & infiltration for handwriting;
  (7) Can be used in packing industry, hot-melt adhesive industry and candle industry;
  (8) Applied in well drilling, maintenance of road surface, leakage plugging agent of reservoir and dust removal in mine;
  (9) Can be used as superior glazing wax for motorcar, furniture, floor, bicycle, precision instrument, the demand quantity is very large;
  (10) Shoeshine industry: can be used as brightening agent of leather and shoeshine;

2. Distribution of lignite wax resources
China possesses abundant lignite resources but commonly with lower lignite wax content. The lignite resource in which the content of lignite wax contained can achieve industrial develop & utilize is very scarce.

China has proven up there are only three producing areas of lignite wax, which can be developed and utilized. The three producing areas is mainly tertiary period lignite and distributes in Yunnan province, Inner Mongolia autonomous region and Jilin province. Of the three areas, the production of one is intermittent and economic benefit is suffering from effect due to the lower content of lignite wax and exhausted resources. Global lignite wax distributes in Germany, Ukraine and USA.

Domestic & oversea markets: regarding the demand to lignite wax in domestic & foreign markets, the annual production capacity of existing domestic lignite mining enterprises is about 300MT. Chinese deep-processed refined lignite wax products is less, it nearly depends on importing from abroad. But as far as the country’s economic growth rate, domestic demand to lignite wax has been rising constantly, and current resources and production scale can not meet the demand of rapid economic development. It is the German producers who monopolize 85% international market share of lignite wax and refined wax products, followed by Ukraine whose products are mainly for export, and American products is still self-sufficiency. The demand of most countries in the world to lignite wax relies on import. So, lignite wax and its refined wax products are hard-to-get supply of goods in international markets.