(Yicai) April 11 -- China has officially labeled high-purity quartz as a new mineral species in a move that is set to cut the country's dependence on imports of the key material used by its strategic high-tech industries such as semiconductors and solar panels.

High-purity quartz has been classified as China's 174th mineral species, the Ministry of Natural Resources announced yesterday.

Significant deposits of the mineral were found recently by the Zhengzhou Institute of Multipurpose Utilization of Mineral Resources, notably in the East Qinling region of Henan Province and the Altay region of Xinjiang.

High-purity quartz can be extracted from rocks containing silicon dioxide of at least 99.995 percent purity. High-purity quartz sand is the main raw material used to make quartz crucibles, tools that are used to make solar silicon wafers.

China relies heavily on imports of this material, with major suppliers such as the United States and Norway dominating the global market.

The high-purity quartz sand China uses to make quartz crucibles is mainly imported, Zheng Tianhong, a photovoltaic industry analyst at the Shanghai Metals Market, told Yicai. The classification of high-purity quartz as a mineral species marks the successful result of China's efforts to find domestic alternatives, he added.

Domestically produced high-purity quartz sand has already been trialed by some crucible manufacturers, with the resulting  products meeting the expected service life, Zheng noted.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione