Hexafluoropropylene (HFP) application demand continues to rise and the production process needs to be further optimized

Hexafluoropropylene (HFP) is an organic compound obtained from the thermal cracking of tetrafluoroethylene. Hexafluoropropylene appears as a colorless and odorless gas, which is toxic. Under pressurized conditions, hexafluoropropylene can be stored and transported in a liquid state without adding stabilizers. Hexafluoropropylene is one of the monomers of fluorine-containing polymer materials and can be used to prepare a variety of fluorine-containing fine chemical products, including hexafluoropropylene oxide (HFPO), heptafluoropropane, fluorine rubber (FKM), polyperfluoroethylene propylene (FEP) ), fluorocarbon oil, perfluoropropylene oxide, etc.

The molecular weight of polyperfluoroethylene-propylene (FEP) is lower than that of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), and its processing performance is better. It is an excellent substitute for PTFE. FEP has a wide range of application fields. In recent years, my country’s FEP market has developed rapidly, with the average annual compound growth rate of output reaching more than 20.0% from 2013 to 2021. The main manufacturers include Juhua Co., Ltd., Dongyue Group, Shanghai Sanaifu, etc. Hexafluoropropylene is the raw material for the production of FEP, and its mass proportion is about 18.3%. As FEP production expands, the application demand for hexafluoropropylene will continue to rise.

According to the “2023-2027 Global Hexafluoropropylene Industry In-depth Market Research and Key Area Research Report released by the Industrial Research Center, There are many hexafluoropropylene manufacturers and the market competition is fierce. Globally, hexafluoropropylene manufacturers are mostly large-scale fluorine chemical companies, including Honeywell, Chemours, Daikin, Juhua, Yonghe, and Hao Hua Technology, Luxi Chemical, Yonghe Refrigeration, etc. At present, the production capacity of my country’s hexafluoropropylene industry is around 100,000 tons, and most of the company’s production capacity is used for internal consumption.

The foreign hexafluoropropylene market started early. Among them, DuPont of the United States took the lead in developing a tetrafluoroethylene pyrolysis process. However, this process has many impurities, low conversion rate, complex reactions, and high toxicity of by-products. In the future, with the environmental protection supervision With the increasingly stringent and industrial structure upgrades, the production process of hexafluoropropylene needs to be further optimized.

In addition to the production of fluorine-containing fine chemical products, hexafluoropropylene is also widely used in pharmaceutical intermediates, fire extinguishing agents, lithium batteries and other fields. In the field of lithium batteries, hexafluoropropylene can be compounded with PVDF to form lithium battery separators. Compared with traditional olefin separators, PVDF-HFP separators have the advantages of high mechanical strength, high ionic conductivity, good thermal stability, and stable cycling. In recent years, benefiting from the development of downstream markets, my country’s hexafluoropropylene market demand has shown continued growth. From 2017 to 2021, the market demand for hexafluoropropylene increased from 38,000 tons to about 57,000 tons.

Industry analysts said that hexafluoropropylene is one of the important fluorine-containing polymer materials, with a wide range of downstream applications and strong market demand. growth trend. There are many hexafluoropropylene manufacturers, mostly large-scale fluorine chemical companies, and their production capacity is mainly used for internal consumption. However, the industrial production process of hexafluoropropylene has problems such as low conversion rate and high toxicity of by-products. In the future, as environmental protection supervision becomes increasingly strict, there will be greater room for optimization of the hexafluoropropylene process.