The hot titanium dioxide market for many years has continued to cool down since the second half of last year, and the price has gradually declined. Up to now, a variety of titanium dioxide prices fell by more than 20%. However, as a high-end product in the titanium dioxide industry, the chlorination process titanium dioxide is still strong.
“Chlorination titanium dioxide is also the development trend of high-end transformation of China’s titanium dioxide industry. In the market supply, technological breakthroughs, leading and other advantages, in recent years, the domestic chloride titanium dioxide production capacity has grown steadily, especially the large-scale production of Longbai Group chloride titanium dioxide equipment has broken the situation that high-end products are subject to foreign countries, and the high-end transformation of domestic titanium dioxide has been on the road.” Said Shao Huiwen, a senior market commentator.
The capacity of chlorination process continues to grow
“Five years ago, chlorination titanium dioxide products accounted for only 3.6% of domestic production, and the industrial structure was seriously unbalanced.” More than 90% of the domestic high-end applications of titanium dioxide rely on imports, the price is about 50% more expensive than domestic general titanium dioxide. High-end products have a large degree of external dependence, and there is no industry discourse power on chlorinated titanium dioxide products, which is also the bottleneck of high-end transformation and upgrading of China’s titanium dioxide industry.” He Benliu Said.
Customs statistics show that in the first quarter of 2023, China’s titanium dioxide imports accumulated about 13,200 tons, down 64.25% year-on-year; The cumulative export volume was about 437,100 tons, an increase of 12.65%. According to other data, China’s titanium dioxide production capacity in 2022 is 4.7 million tons, imports are down 43% from 2017, and exports are up 290% from 2012. “In recent years, the domestic titanium dioxide imports have declined and the export volume has increased, because the rapid expansion of domestic leading enterprises’ chloride titanium dioxide production capacity has effectively alleviated the dependence on imported high-end products.” The person in charge of a domestic coating enterprise said.
According to He Benliu, the mainstream process of titanium dioxide is divided into sulfuric acid method, chlorination method and hydrochloric acid method, of which the chlorination process is short, easy to expand production capacity, high degree of continuous automation, relatively low energy consumption, less “three wastes” emissions, can get high-quality products, is the main push process of titanium dioxide industry. The global chlorination titanium dioxide and sulfuric acid titanium dioxide production capacity ratio of about 6:4, in Europe and the United States, the proportion of chlorination is higher, China’s proportion has risen to 3:7, the future preparation of chlorination titanium dioxide supply shortage situation will continue to be improved.
Chlorination is listed in the encouraged category
The “Industrial structure Adjustment Guidance Catalogue” issued by the National Development and Reform Commission listed the production of chlorinated titanium dioxide in the encouraged category, while limiting the new non-coproduction of sulphuric acid titanium dioxide, which has become an opportunity for the transformation and upgrading of titanium dioxide enterprises, since then domestic titanium dioxide enterprises began to increase the research and development and research investment in the production technology of chlorinated titanium dioxide.
After years of technical research, to solve a number of problems in chloride titanium dioxide, Longbai Group has developed a number of high-quality series of high-end chloride titanium dioxide products, the overall performance has reached the international advanced level, some performance has reached the international leading level. We are the first successful innovative application of large-scale boiling chlorination titanium dioxide technology enterprises, practice has also confirmed that chlorination titanium dioxide technology is more green and environmentally friendly, its waste slag pile stock than sulfuric acid method to reduce more than 90%, comprehensive energy saving up to 30%, water saving up to 50%, environmental benefits are very significant, and product performance to meet import standards, In one fell swoop, the foreign monopoly in the high-end market has been broken, and the products have been recognized by the market.
With the successive production of new domestic chlorinated titanium dioxide projects, its production capacity has reached about 1.08 million tons by 2022, accounting for the total domestic production capacity has risen from 3.6% five years ago to more than 22%, greatly reducing the external dependence of chlorinated titanium dioxide, and the market supply advantage has begun to appear.
Industry insiders believe that based on the development trend of high-end titanium dioxide application, as well as the current layout and status quo of the domestic industry, China’s high-end titanium dioxide transformation has begun to break the game. It is suggested that relevant government departments and industries should increase the attention and guidance of chlorination project planning, and enterprises should also be targeted, abandon the project investment and planning of backward processes and backward products, and focus on the development and application of high-end products to avoid the risk of excess low-end products.
Post time: Jun-09-2023