High Value-Added Chlorine Products -- The Logical Choice for Chinese Chlor-Alkali Industry   

By Cai Jie China National Petroleum & Chemical Planning Institute
Bleach and disinfectant, chlorine, from the chlor-alkali industry, performs as significant raw material to produce a series of chlorine products. Currently, the chlorine production chain is comprehensive, with more than 200 chlorine products that Chinese producers can make, including PVC series, Epoxy compound series, phosgene series etc., while application are spreading in plastics industry, pesticide, coating, aids and water disposal. According to statistics by authorities, Chinese chorine capacity is the world's biggest, 30% - 70% of the global total.  
    However, domestic factories need to develop their innovation and processing methods - most producers do not pay much attention to high value-added chlorine products and still use traditional production techniques. In addition, chlorine fine chemicals and specialty chemicals that are in great demand in local markets apparently are imported.
    Cai Jie, an investigator from China National Petroleum & Chemical Planning Institute, lists the following chlorine series products and shows professional analysis of current chlorine market in depth.

1. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC)

As basic polymer, PVC is widely used in construction, packaging, electronics, automobiles, farm film and irrigation, all of which are strongly relevant to the national economy and people's livelihood. With the development of Chinese urbanization, the demand for PVC in construction and packaging becomes much greater than any others, thus it still has fairly good potential for PVC in domestic market. However, low operating rates, excessive capacity and imbalance of supply & demand currently block the development of the PVC industry which domestic producers have to pay closer attention to.
    It is considered that PVC market competition in China would continuously last and the situation tend to be more difficult for PVC producers in the next few years. Therefore, in order to reduce risk, Chinese PVC producers must find a proper route for differentiation.

2. Epoxy compound

With development of polyether and epoxy resin, much propylene oxide and epichlorohydrin are needed, while the limitation is the source of propylene and discharge of saponified wastewater. However, glycerol, a secondary product from the biodiesel industry, is considered to have potential use in propylene production as a raw material which is quite environmentally friendly. Besides, the combination with biodiesel industry enables to set the supply and price of glycerol under control.
    On the other hand, the new processing method could not totally replace traditional methods in a short period. The suggestion for current producers is to reinforce the investment in clean production and pollution treatment, in detail of processing optimization, saponified wastewater discharging and calcium chloride extraction.

3. Methane chlorides

The increasing capacity in recent years has indicated domestic producers already mastered the core technology of methane chlorides production but it is predicted that the market will be more competitive and profits will tend to be lower in the next few years, requiring that the producers that are interesting in new methane chloride projects have to consider local fluorine or silicon resources and technology innovation in order to be able to produce high value-added downstream products, which is the foundation of competitive power in the future.

4. Phosgene series

Toluene diisocyanate(TDI), diphenylmethane diisocyanate(MDI) and polycarbonate(PC) are considered to be high-tech and high value-added products which are currently in short supply domestically with sharply increasing demand in market. In spite of broad prospects, the phosgene industry not only requires that producers have a strong technology background, but location of factories is strictly limited, thus it might be very tough to access this industry. In addition, hydrogen chloride - a secondary product of phosgene production is traditionally used in hydrochloric acid production which is low value-added. In the future, Chinese phosgene production will probably be combined with PVC production or other imported technology that has capability to recycle chloride with high efficiency.

5. Chlorinated polymer

The production scale of chlorinated polymer in China leads world due to owning core technology such as in chlorinated polyethylene (CPE) and chlorinated paraffin wax. The current focus is on problems fragmentary production and homogeneous products, and high-end goods have to be imported. The prospective strategy for Chinese producers is to develop high-end products such as CPE rubber; Aqueous-phased chlorinated polypropylene (CPP) and chlorinated paraffin-70, aiming to broaden application domains and enter international markets.

6. Chlorinated aromatic hydrocarbons

As early-developing chlorine product, Chinese chlorinated aromatic hydrocarbons always keep in high class in production scale, quality and processing methods which are predominant in global market. For the further development, Chinese producers need to build up a comprehensive downstream product chain.
    Simultaneously, this sector generates two isomers in chlorinated aromatic hydrocarbons while supply and demand are out of balance for the two, therefore the emphasis on innovation should focus on the ratio of two isomers in production.

7. Chlorine bleach and chlorine disinfectant

As high efficient disinfectants, the production of chlorisocyanuric acid and calcium hypochloride in China almost contributes to international market rather than domestics, due to limitation of consumption level and market promotion. In the last two years, most chlorine disinfectant factories had less profit by the influence of export rebates and weak dollar. Generally, the further development of high quality disinfectants focus on marketing promotion, in detail of building up domestic sale network which drive the production in a right direction, besides concentration on innovation.
    Polyaluminium chloride (PAC) is widely used as flocculating agent in wastewater disposal and it was calculated that there are currently 1 million tons PAC consumption annually despite mainly in SMEs. With the increasing flocculating agent demand, it is expected that there is a bright prospect for the domestic PAC market.

8. Chlorine fine chemicals

Trichlorosilane, mainly used for high pure polycrystalline silicon production which has been very attractive to numbers of fine chemicals enterprises, performs as potential and appropriate goods to chlorine industry due to high consumption for chlorine. Authoritative statistics show that in the next five to ten years trichlorosilane will be a primary inorganic product in chlorine downstream production.
    Other chlorine fine chemicals production currently remains fairly weak, and it requires producers paying closer attention in innovation investment.

9. Inorganic chlorides

In the last two years, inorganic chlorides industry mainly focuses on titanium tetrachloride, over 90% of which contribute to titanium sponge consumption, and more and more investors show interest in this area. Up to the end of 2010, the capacity of titanium tetrachloride has approached to 400 000 t/a by 80% in five-year old plants, and most titanium sponge factories centralized in the middle of China and southeast China. The further development of titanium tetrachloride comprises product construct adjustment, quality improvement and health & safety as well as high