# Evaluation and Current State of Primary and Secondary Zinc Production--A Review
## 2 Zinc Production, Demand and Applications
### Application and Demand  
Zinc usage in 2015-2022 was presented in Table 3. In 2016, the demand for zinc exceeded 13.67 million tons, reaching even 14 million tons in 2021. However, the year 2022 resulted in a decrease in the demand for zinc due to the downturn in the economy related to the lockdown and the effects of COVID-19. Although, according to the ILZSG, global zinc consumption exceeded production in the first 10 months of 2022. Therefore, annual zinc consumption also includes zinc from secondary or recycled sources, such products are collected and processed based on scrap availability, metal composition (e.g., purity, alloy, etc.) and ease of processing [27]. Zinc is now the fourth most used metal in the world after iron, aluminum and copper. It has strong anti-corrosion properties. Demand for zinc is mainly driven by the production of galvanized steel, which is widely used in many industrial sectors. As a result, about 50% of the currently produced zinc is used to produce anti-corrosion coatings by hot dip galvanizing method (Figure 4). About 1/3 of zinc production is used for the production of alloys. This application includes both zinc and aluminum casting alloys (approx. 17%) as well as zinc used as an alloying additive, mainly in brasses and bronzes (approx. 17%). The third significant application of zinc is the production of chemical compounds, including the most important in terms of the production volume of zinc oxide (6%). A similar share (6%) is the production of zinc semi-finished products, of which zinc anodes used in electrochemical corrosion protection and rolled zinc sheets with the addition of Ti are the most important for production [33; 35]. Hot dip galvanizing technology has been dynamically developing over the last few decades. Although this process has been known for over 150 years (in 1836, [PERSON] patented the hot dip galvanizing process), the consumption of zinc for the hot dip galvanizing process is still increasing. In 1960, only 32% of global zinc production was used for the production of coatings (Figure 4b). Taking into account the global production of zinc in 1960 at the level of 6.8 million tons and over 13 million t  
Figure 4: End use zinc consumption distribution in 1960 and 2022, figure worked out on data taken from [28]. significant increase in the consumption of zinc, mainly by the galvanizing industry. Zinc coatings obtained by the hot dip method are currently the most effective and economical anti-corrosion protection. According to statistics, the demand for this type of corrosion protection is constantly growing. In 2019, over 8.1 million tons of structural steel were galvanized in Europe and only compared to the data from 2018, an increase in production by nearly 1% was recorded [36]. In North America, in 2019, 4.9 million tons of steel were galvanized, which gives an approx. 10% increase in the production of galvanized products compared to 2014 [37]. However, by far, the largest HDG market in the world is China. The estimated production of galvanized steel in 2017 was 44 million tons, including 25 million tons of structural steel, 15 million tons of pipes and 4 million tons of small assortment (bolts, nuts, etc.). Zinc consumption for galvanizing in China is currently 58.2% of the country's total zinc consumption, which is higher than the world average (about 50%) [38]. It should be noted that the demand for galvanized products in China was about 200,000 tons of steel in 1982, about 300,000 tons in 1992 and about 9,000,000 tons of steel in 2002 [39]. These data show that in the last few decades, the amount of galvanized steel in China has been growing exponentially, reflecting the global increase in zinc consumption. The galvanizing industry has a decisive influence on shaping global zinc production and market. Commonly used for galvanizing in the 80 s of the last century, metallurgical zinc Good Ordinary Brand (GOB) with a lower purity of 98.5 wt.% contained up to 1.5 wt.% impurities, including up to approx. 1.4 wt.% Pb [40].