Brisk Demand for Building Coatings in China

During 2002-2011, with the acceleration of urbanization progress, the housing industry drives the rapid development of building coatings market in China. However, in 2012, due to the impact of domestic macro-control policies on the housing market, the growth of demand for building coatings has slowed down.
　　Driven by the strong market demand, China’s output of building coatings increased 19.4% year on year on an average from 2001 to 2011.

Table 1 China’s Output of Coatings and Building Coatings during 2001-2012 (kt, %)
Year    Output of coatings     YOY growth (coatings output)    Output of building coatings     Share of building coatings in the total    YOY growth (building coatings output)
2001    1 820    -1.3    588    32.4    4.4
2002    2 020    11    653    32.4    11.1
2003    2 420    19.8    721    29.9    10.4
2004    2 980    23.4    1 134    38    57.3
2005    4 040    35.6    1 301    32.2    14.7
2006    5 290    30.9    1 554    30.6    19.4
2007    5 970    12.9    1 796    30.1    15.6
2008    6 380    6.8    1 941    30.4    8.1
2009    7 550    18.4    2 617    34.6    34.8
2010    9 670    28    3 518    36.4    34.5
2011    10 790    16.4    3 455    32    -1.8
2012(Jan.-Sep.)    8 870    9.1    　    　    　

Table 2 China’s Output Growth of Coatings and Building Coatings during 2001-2011  (kt)
Year     Output of coatings     Output of building coatings
2001    1 820    588
2011    10 800    3 455
Increased multiples     5.9    5.9
YoY growth    19.5    19.4


According to China Building Materials Federation, in 2011, 224 building coatings enterprises with annual sales of RMB20.0 million or above in China produced 3 455 194 tons of building coatings, up 8.3% year-on-year, and down 1.8% if comparing with the statistic data of 3 518 217 tons in 410 building coatings enterprises with annual sales of RMB5.0 million or above in 2010. The number of statistical involved enterprises in 2011 was different from that in 2010.
    In recent two years, the output growth of building coatings decreased from two-digit to one-digit in China.
   With the rapid development of building coatings sector, the scale of enterprises has expanded business constantly. However, China’s building coatings firms have long way to go compared with the United States companies in which the top 4 building coatings ones occupy 65% of market share.
   Innovation, which includes a series of innovations like product, painting technology, raw materials, production process, management and sales, is the soul of enterprises’ development.
　　Over the past ten years, China’s exterior wall insulation sector started and gradually developed, and the building coatings were more reasonable and effective matched with the thermal insulation systems. From concept to essence, the building coatings achieved continuous improvements in water repellency, permeability, crack resistance, improving the decorative performance and durability, etc.
　　Furthermore, China has developed new products such as water-in-water multi-color coatings, reflective thermal insulation coatings, self-cleaning coatings, texture coatings, building coatings with a high durability, inorganic dry powder building coatings and functional building coatings, etc. The requirements on the environmental performance of building coatings were more and more stringent.
　　Coatings are semi-finished products. Only through painting and forming a film firmly attached on the basis surface under a suitable condition, coatings can have protection and decoration effects.
　　Painting is the key process in which the semi-finished products are transformed into the finished products. China has a high requirement on the decorative performance of coatings and the high decorative effect painting technologies like imitating stone and imitating brick have been quite matured. China has constantly brought forth the new painting technologies, increased the efficiency, improved decorative effect and led the trend to meet the various needs of users.
　　CRP (controlled radical polymerization) can synthesize the polymers with the determined molecular structure and controlled relative molecular mass. The GTP (group transfer polymerization), ATRP (atom transfer radical polymerization), NMP (nitroxide mediated polymerization) and RAFT (reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer polymerization) are the most frequently used CRP technologies. Using these techniques and selecting the suitable methods and equipment, the desired polymer structure is obtained.  Nearly monodisperse polymers with specific structure, narrow relative molecular mass distribution are finally synthesized through selecting different monomers and arranging them according to the order of design. Even spending a lot of time, energy and materials, these polymers cannot be synthesized if using the conventional methods. For example, AB type block polymer surfactant with the determined molecular structure and controlled relative molecular mass, which is synthesized by using CRP technology, is the development direction of coating dispersing agents. CRP technology was firstly realized commercial application in the sectors like dispersing agent and synthetic resin emulsion modification.
   The polymers for solvent coatings are dissolved in solvent and form the homogeneous phase, while the polymers for waterborne coatings are mostly granular. The different polymers can be obtained by changing the composition, structure and morphology of particles. The multiphase technology, which becomes a key for solving the problem of waterborne coatings, has been extensively used.

Accelerating the formulation and revision of standards
China accelerated the formulation and revision of building coatings standards in recent years. However, some standards like putty standard and reflective insulation coatings standard were repeatedly formulated. The consistency between some standard test index and actual performance needs to be improved. China needs to formulate the test method standards of building coatings that are in line with the international advanced standards like ISO and ASTM.