State-owned nanotechnologies development company RUSNANO and Kyshtymsky Ore Mining Factory have signed an investment agreement for expansion and technical reconstruction of a complex to produce high-purity quartz concentrates based on the complex to mine, process, and enrich vein concentrate at the Kyshtymsky deposit in Chelyabinsk region, RUSNANO reports.

Total investment in the project is estimated at $75m, including RUSNANO’s finance of $25.5m.

Concentrates, produced under the project, are used as the base construction materials for obtaining high-purity quartz glass, used in micro-electronics, power and UV light technology, special optics, quartz ceramics and many other high-technology applications.

The project to overhaul production complex at the factory is scheduled to be carried out in three years and in two stages. As a result of the investment project, the company is to grow annual production by over six times – from 1,500 to 10,000 tons of quartz concentrates of purity level from IOTA std to IOTA 6.

At the first stage, scheduled to be carried out by mid-2012, the factory is to grow production of quartz materials to 6,000 tons per year. The volume of the global market of quartz concentrates currently totals about 60,000 tons. Thus, RUSNANO’s investment is to allow the Kyshtumsky Factory to take a significant place on the global market, which is currently experiencing a deficit of quartz concentrate due to high growth rate of solar energy sector.

The production complex of national quartz concentrates is to enable forming a full vertically-integrated chain of polysilicon production in Russia – from mining quartz materials and production concentrate – to production of quartz crucibles and their technological adjustment for production of silicon monocrystals.