Research and development of top products, guarantee raw material supply, improve industrial concentration and pay attention to cleaner production
"After more than 20 years of high-speed development, the scale and product quality of China's Titanium Dioxide industry have been comprehensively improved. However, to achieve high-quality development, efforts need to be made in increasing top-level product research and development, ensuring raw material supply, improving industrial concentration, and paying attention to environmental protection and clean production." Bi Sheng, Secretary General of the technical innovation strategic alliance of titanium dioxide industry, said in an interview recently.
Increase top product R & D
Over the past 20 years, although China's titanium dioxide industry has made great progress in production and equipment technology, product quality research and development, there is still a big gap between China's titanium dioxide industry and international companies in terms of brand awareness and quality connotation.
In the domestic market, although the products of large enterprises have a certain popularity, this is only compared with the past or small and micro enterprises, and most of them can only be applied in the fields below the middle end or middle high end. Titanium dioxide products used in the top fields such as high-grade automobiles, high-speed rail trains, ocean containers and so on still rely on imports.
In the international market, the titanium dioxide products exported by China are mainly used in the middle and low-end fields, and only some of them can be used in the middle and high-end fields.
Bisheng said that since 2009, the overall scale of China's titanium dioxide has ranked first in the world. In today's era of open global economic integration, high quality is the main theme of future development. Here, high quality refers to the quality and brand of products. The traditional practice of relying solely on quantity and low price to win the world has long been a history.
Ensure the supply of chlorination raw materials
Bisheng said that the transfer of production process to chlorination process is one of the development trends of the international titanium dioxide industry in the past 30 years. Compared with sulfuric ACID process, the quality of chlorination process is better.
It is understood that before 2019, the proportion of China's production of chlorination process was always 2% ~ 5%; there were four production enterprises, but in 2018, it was reduced to two.
In 2019, China's chlorination process has made substantial progress:Lomo Billions achieved the completion and commissioning of the first production line of the 200000 t / a phase II project on the basis of the capacity of 100000 t / A in phase I, making the company's chlorination process capacity reach 300000 t / A, and after the acquisition of Yunnan Xinli titanium industry, the total production capacity has reached 360000 T / A.
In addition, CITIC titanium has expanded the capacity of 60000 tons / year based on the capacity of chlorination process, and the construction of a new production line of 60000 tons / year has been started; the 60000 tons / year production line of Shandong Xianghai Resources Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Shandong Lubei Chemical Industry Co., Ltd., has started construction; the 50000 tons / year production line of Sichuan Yibin Tianyuan Haifeng Hetai Co., Ltd. has been put into operation, and the construction of the second 50000 T / a production line will be implemented.
Bisheng reminded that in the new chlorination project, titanium raw material support should be considered. "In the next 1-2 years, the total capacity of chlorination process in China will reach about 650000 tons / year, of which the boiling process capacity will be about 500000 tons / year. Under the background that the domestic titanium ore has not yet been industrialized in the preparation of high-grade titanium raw materials for boiling chlorination, the 800000 tons / year titanium raw materials required for the production capacity of 500000 tons / year can only be imported. However, in recent years, the excavation or production of high-grade titanium raw materials in the international market has not only made great progress, but also shows a downward trend. It is an indisputable fact that the supply and demand of titanium raw materials will be tight in the future. " Bi Sheng said.
Improve industrial concentration
Bison believes that another development trend of the world titanium dioxide industry is that there are fewer and fewer manufacturers and the scale of single manufacturer is growing. In China's titanium dioxide industry, with the rapid development of large enterprises, the status has been consolidated, and the industry capacity concentration has been continuously improved, but the shuffle effect is still difficult to show in the short term.
It is understood that at present, there are 17-18 titanium dioxide producers in the world except China, with a total production capacity of 4 million tons / year. Among them, the top five titanium dioxide manufacturers, such as Chemours, Tronox, Tioxide, KRONOS and ISK（TIPAQUE）, have a comprehensive production capacity of 3.6 million tons / year, accounting for 90%. From the domestic point of view, in 2019, China's top five manufacturers accounted for 50% of the capacity; the top 10 accounted for 67.6%, which is obviously a big gap with foreign countries.
"In the current relatively loose economic environment, the existing producers still have basic living conditions, and there are many new projects outside the industry, which makes the total number of titanium dioxide producers increase instead of decreasing. Considering various factors, this situation is difficult to change in the short term, which is also a problem in the high-quality development of the industry. " Bi Sheng pointed out.
Pay attention to environmental protection and cleaner production
Bisheng said that after more than 20 years of high-speed development, China's titanium dioxide industry has made great achievements, and its next development goals are: first, to further improve and improve the existing basis; second, to pay special attention to environmental protection and clean production, and to work towards the direction of comprehensive utilization of waste and by-products and low or even zero emissions.
At present, special attention should be paid to the purification, treatment and reuse of low concentration acid wastewater and low concentration waste acid; and before the purification and reuse of this part of wastewater and waste acid, only lime / carbide slag and other alkaline substances can be used to neutralize the sludge generated from the treatment, which is a crucial link in the realization of green industry.
Bisheng stressed that compared with sulfuric acid process, chlorination process has much less solid emissions containing monovalent chloride ions due to the application of high-grade titanium raw materials, and the treatment difficulty is much higher than that of sulfuric acid process containing divalent sulfate radical. The scale of the existing chlorination process enterprises is small, and the solid waste discharged is basically not treated scientifically. However, after the completion and commissioning of larger scale plants in the later stage, tens of thousands of tons of hazardous waste discharged can no longer be ignored or simply treated, which is also a high-quality industry
