China's titanium dioxide: new steps on the road from a big country to a powerful country

In the century since the founding of the Communist Party of China, China's titanium dioxide industry has made remarkable achievements, both in terms of production level and enterprise scale. Through unremitting efforts, China's titanium dioxide output has ranked first in the world for 12 consecutive years. And move towards the fast track of green development in an all-round way.

China's titanium dioxide industry started in Shanghai Huaheng Chemical Plant, which was born in 1956. Although it is a full 40 years later than the world's first titanium dioxide factory built in Norway, after 65 years of development, under the leadership of the Party, China's titanium dioxide industry has come from behind and has 42 full-process production enterprises by 2020, with an annual comprehensive output of more than 3.5 million tons. Now we are working hard to become a titanium dioxide power.

In 1957, Tianjin Chemical Research Institute of the Ministry of Chemical Industry organized forces to systematically research and develop the production process of pigment-grade anatase titanium dioxide. In 1958, some non-pigment-grade small titanium dioxide factories were established in Tianjin, Jinan, Wuxi and other places. From 1962 to 1963, Tianjin Research Institute of Chemical Industry expanded the test results of pigment-grade anatase titanium dioxide and carried out industrial trial production in Shanghai Huaheng Chemical Plant and Tianjin Tongsheng Chemical Plant, and passed the appraisal jointly organized by the Ministry of Chemical Industry and Shanghai Chemical Industry Bureau. it has laid a technological foundation for the production of anatase titanium dioxide by sulfuric acid process in China.

By the mid-1980s, many small titanium dioxide plants have been built all over the country, 108 enterprises are mainly concentrated in Henan, Guangxi, Jiangsu and other provinces, and most of them are township enterprises. These enterprises are not only small in scale, but also backward in technology and equipment, poor product quality and serious pollution of "three wastes".

In order to limit the mass action of titanium dioxide enterprises that do not have the production conditions, the Ministry of Chemical Industry formulated a policy in 1988 that titanium dioxide enterprises with a scale of less than 3500 tons per year were not allowed to be built, and a titanium dioxide production license system was implemented in 1991.

In formulating the Seventh five-year Plan, the Ministry of Chemical Industry also put forward the development policy of "simultaneous development of sulfuric acid process and chlorination process, capital construction and technological transformation, technology introduction and domestic technology development." A number of 10,000-ton titanium dioxide plants began to be built, and the introduction of technology began to be carried out in an orderly manner.

Among them, the No. 404 plant of the Ministry of Nuclear Industry introduced the titanium dioxide process and engineering technology of Czech Policai Company, and built a 15000 ton / year sulfuric acid titanium dioxide plant in 1993. Sichuan Chongqing Yugang Titanium dioxide Co., Ltd. introduced Polish titanium dioxide plant technology and equipment, and built a 15000 ton / year titanium dioxide plant in 1995. In 1994, Jinzhou Ferroalloy Plant of Liaoning Province completed the first set of titanium dioxide plant of 15000 tons / year chlorination process in China. The digestion and absorption of the introduced projects have played a role in promoting the technological progress and large-scale equipment of China's titanium dioxide industry.

The substantial development of China's titanium dioxide industry began in 1998. According to Bi Sheng, director of the Titanium dioxide Sub-Center of the National Chemical Productivity Promotion Center and Secretary-General of the technological Innovation Strategic Alliance of the Titanium dioxide Industry, before the 1990s, China did not have a 10,000-ton titanium dioxide production enterprise. 1998-2020 is the era of great development of the titanium dioxide industry, and the effective total production capacity has increased sharply year by year, surpassing Japan in 2001 to ranking second in the world, and surpassing the United States in 2009 to become the first in the world. After a long time of exploration, the chlorination technology has also made a large-scale breakthrough in recent years. In particular, in 2020, the national output of titanium dioxide by chlorination process was nearly 320000 tons, making a "double breakthrough".

Up to now, there are 12 large enterprises with an annual output of 100000 tons or more in the national titanium dioxide industry. they are long Python-Baili, Panzhihua Vanadium Titanium, China Nuclear Titanium dioxide, China Chemical Industry Group, Shandong Dongjia Group, Jinpu Titanium Industry, Shandong Jinhai Titanium Industry, Ningbo Xinfu, Shandong Dawn Titanium Industry, Guangxi Jinmao Titanium Industry, Yunnan (Panzhihua) Interchange and Panzhihua Titanium Sea (Group). At this stage, there are nearly 10 large-scale expansion projects under construction, with a total annual capacity of about 1.3 million tons. If these projects are completed and put into production in the next 1-2 years, the total annual production capacity of the industry will increase to 5 million-5.1 million tons, which can change the face of the industry to a considerable extent.

After more than 20 years of rapid development, China's titanium dioxide industry has also made great progress in technology, product quality and industrial chain extension. In terms of new technology and equipment, in recent years, the treatment technology of acid hydrolysis tail gas developed by Wuhan Fangyuan, the recovery and comprehensive utilization technology of acid hydrolysis tail residue of Hubei Shengrong Environmental Protection and Energy Saving Technology Co., Ltd., the multi-effect concentration technology and equipment of titanium liquid of Nantong Sansheng, the waste heat utilization technology of rotary kiln tail gas of Nanjing Huadian Energy Saving and Environmental Protection Co., Ltd., the MVR low temperature concentration technology of Zhong Yi Lvyuan, the dehydration equipment of red gypsum high pressure filter press of Guangdong Huiyun, The co-production technology of sulfur, titanium, iron and calcium and continuous acidolysis technology have played an exemplary role in the technological progress of titanium dioxide industry in China.

In terms of the development of the industrial chain, enterprises gradually create conditions to take the road of co-production according to their own conditions and the characteristics of the surrounding environment, so as to achieve the circular development of reduction and resource utilization. A large number of backbone enterprises, such as Sichuan Dragon Python, Shandong Dongjia, Shandong Jinhai Titanium Industry, Shandong Dawn, Huiyun Titanium Industry, Qianjiang Fangyuan, Jiangxi Tianguang and so on, have launched sulfur-titanium, sulfur-phosphorus-titanium, sulfur-ammonium-titanium, sulfur-iron-titanium, sulfur-titanium-gypsum-cement and other green industrial chains.

The improvement of the quality of titanium dioxide products is also gradually accelerated. Jiangsu Pan-Hua Chemical Technology Co., Ltd. is an innovative technology company focusing on titanium dioxide products. Jiangsu Tefeng New material Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Jiangsu Tefeng New Materials Technology Co., Ltd., is a national high-tech enterprise. specializing in a variety of high-end titanium dioxide products and titanium dioxide new materials research and development, R & D achievements continue to achieve; The company (including subsidiaries Pan-China testing, Tefeng New Materials, Gangfeng New Materials) currently applies for 56 patents and has obtained 12 authorized patents for technical inventions and 1 patent for utility models. The transformed technical achievements include: near-infrared reflection titanium dioxide IR-1000, new near-infrared reflection titanium dioxide IR-600, high-end plastic rutile titanium dioxide DR-2588, high weather resistance plastic grade titanium dioxide DR-2589 and other high-end titanium dioxide products, with completely independent intellectual property rights, has become the new favorite of the downstream high-end market at home and abroad.

The quality of rutile titanium dioxide produced by a large number of enterprises, such as Longyangbai Lianlian, Shandong Dongjia, Panzhihua Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., Ningbo Xinfu, Huiyun Titanium Industry, Qianjiang Fangyuan, and so on, has reached or approached the international first-line product level, and has been recognized by the high-end market. China has taken new steps on the road of titanium dioxide power.