Refractory materials are inorganic non-metallic materials, and their products are mainly used in high-temperature industrial production processes such as metallurgy, building materials, nonferrous metals, chemicals, machinery, electric power and military industries; they are indispensable important materials for high-temperature industries, especially in national economic construction. It is an irreplaceable important role in the development of high temperature industry.

Tracing back to history, China's refractory materials began to be manufactured and used in the ceramic industry as early as the Yin and Shang dynasties. It has a history of more than 3,000 years. However, due to the long-term feudal rule and the closure of the country, in the long history, China's refractory industry has been in a backward state like other industrial sectors. In 1949, the total production of refractory materials in the country was only 74,000 tons. The refractory materials required for high-temperature industries, even the general refractory materials for boilers, must be imported from abroad.

After the founding of New China, with the development of national economic recovery and construction, China's refractory industry has also continued to grow and develop. In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the state invested nearly 100 million yuan to rebuild a number of refractory factories such as Tangshan Iron and Steel, Taigang and Anshan Iron and Steel. At the same time, several glass brick and tile factories in Shandong, Hebei and Shanghai were converted into refractory materials factories. In the project, an Angang Dashiqiao Magnesia Mine Magnesia Brick Factory with high mechanization level was built. During the first five-year plan for national economic construction, the total production of refractory materials nationwide reached 1.01 million tons, which was 12.6 times higher than that in 1949. A number of new products such as high-aluminum bricks and magnesium-aluminum bricks with Chinese resource characteristics were produced. It began to change the monotonous situation of China's refractory products. With this as a symbol, refractory materials have entered the ranks of national economic construction and development as an independent industry.

From the beginning of the "2·5" to the 20th year of 1978, in order to meet the needs of high-temperature industries, especially the development of the steel industry, according to the overall layout of the national industrial construction, after the investment of nearly 400 million yuan in the 1950s, Luoyang was newly built. After Beijing, Wangcun, Wuhan Iron and Steel, Baotou Steel, Qinhuangdao, Deyang and other refractory materials factories, in the "three-five" and "four-five" period, in order to solve the needs of the development of the steel industry in the southwest and northwest regions, and invest 600 million yuan has successively built a number of refractory materials factories such as Pangang, Guiyang and Northwest. Despite the adjustment of the national economy, the output of the national refractory industry has continued to grow, reaching 4.87 million tons in 1978, and the product quality and variety structure of refractory products have been continuously improved and improved.

Since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, under the guidance of the party's "reform and openness" policy, China's refractory industry has shifted from a semi-closed state to an open industry, from a small production state to a socialized large-scale production. The transformation of variety quality has gradually embarked on the road of relying on technological progress, connotative expansion and reproduction, comprehensive quality of enterprises, quality of refractory materials, scientific and technological benefits and production scale. Since the beginning of the new century, under the strong development of high-temperature industrial new technology, people have a deeper understanding of the dialectical relationship between the refractory industry and the development of high-temperature industry, and the fundamental relationship has been changed. The renewal of ideas has created a very favorable external environment for the innovation and development of China's refractory industry. In the early 1980s, Baosteel newly promoted the localization of refractory materials. China's refractory industry is aiming at the international first-class level. Through introduction, absorption, digestion, transplantation and innovation, it not only has the international advanced level to provide modern large-scale steel joint enterprises. The ability of high-quality refractory materials can also guarantee the supply of special refractory materials required for large-diameter cement kiln, float glass production line and other high-temperature industries (including aerospace industry), and realize the leap of refractory industry. According to statistics, there are about 2,000 refractory production enterprises above designated size in China, which are distributed in various provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions except Tibet, forming a complete refractory industrial system with nearly 300,000 employees. From 1950 to 2017, a total of 51.404 million tons of refractory materials were produced. China's highest production of refractory products in 2011 reached 29.496 million tons, which was 398.6 times that of 1949, accounting for about 65% of the total annual production of refractory materials worldwide.

With the overall improvement of China's economic strength, China's refractory industry has also continuously improved its position in the world refractory industry. At present, the varieties and total quantities produced by the refractory industry not only basically meet the needs of domestic high-temperature industrial production and development, but also the output ranks first in the world, and the export volume of refractory products is increasing year by year. The market covers many countries in Southeast Asia and the Americas and the European Union. Russia and more than 150 countries (regions). The old and young Chinese refractory industry, from small to large, from "earth" to "foreign", from the domestic to the global, has grown into a truly global refractory production, consumption and exporting country.