Breaking through DuPont’s technology blockade, six domestic enterprises started the chloride titanium dioxide project

Domestic chlorination titanium dioxide is in a situation of "thriving population". A few days ago, according to the statistics of the titanium dioxide industry, 6 domestic enterprises have mastered the titanium dioxide chloride technology and started the construction of the titanium dioxide chloride project, ending the ten-year history of Jinzhou Titanium Industry.

It is worth noting that DuPont of the United States, which has been wrestling with Pangang for many years to curb the "Panzhihua Iron and Steel" titanium dioxide chloride project, was absent from the China Vanadium and Titanium Industry Expo at the end of last month. Regarding its absence, Xu Jianmin, member of the Standing Committee of the Panzhihua Municipal Party Committee and Secretary-General of the Municipal Party Committee, said, "A lot of resources were used to invite it before the meeting, but it didn't come."

If many domestic enterprises have successfully broken through the technical blockade of China's titanium dioxide chloride method, will DuPont continue to fight Panzhihua Iron and Steel? At the same time, is there still room for development in the next step of titanium dioxide production by sulfuric acid method?

The chlorination method is to mix rutile or high-titanium slag powder with coke and then carry out high-temperature chlorination to produce refined titanium tetrachloride. After rectification and vanadium removal, high-temperature oxidation, classification, surface treatment, and filtration , washed with water, dried and pulverized to obtain a titanium dioxide product. In the sulfuric acid method, ferrotitanium powder and concentrated sulfuric acid are subjected to acidolysis reaction to produce titanous sulfate, which is hydrolyzed to generate metatitanic acid, and then calcined and crushed to obtain titanium dioxide products.

Many companies have mastered the chlorination method

The "National First Boiling Chlorination Production Technology Seminar and Luohe Xingmao Titanium Industry Chlorination Titanium White Engineering Technology Review Meeting" will be held soon.

According to the information obtained by the reporter from the organizer of the meeting, the experts in the meeting will inspect the trial operation and production of Luohe Xingmao 30,000 tons/year chloride-process titanium dioxide project on site. Quality, consumption and cost, environmental protection and safety protection are investigated and assessed, and the operation level of the project is summarized and evaluated.

According to relevant reports, Luohe Xingmao's main production facilities for the chloride-based titanium dioxide project began full-scale construction in March 2012, using advanced technologies such as large-scale boiling chlorination and gas-phase oxidation, and the production process is fully controlled with a high degree of automation . In August 2013, the production line was completed and put into trial production in September. The trial production was completed in September 2014, and the whole process has been continuously operated for 99 hours without interruption, exceeding the normative standard of 72 hours of continuous operation for trial production of engineering projects in the chemical industry, and the capacity load has reached 100%. At present, the production system is running stably, and the continuous operation time has exceeded 15 days. The output has reached more than 5,000 tons, and the quality is stable. The project has entered the normal production stage.

Yunnan Xinli Nonferrous Metals Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Yunnan Xinli") also stated on November 29 that the chlorination method of titanium dioxide has overcome the problem of low production capacity of domestic chlorination furnaces, with a daily production capacity of 500 tons, overcoming the The core issues of the oxidation system such as the particle size distribution of the oxidation system and the conversion rate of rutile. At present, the project is in the trial run stage, and has completed the major node of continuous operation for 72 hours of linkage test run, achieving a maximum load of 75%, and at 70% load, it is expected to be able to run stably for a long time.

At the same time, Xinli Titanium Dioxide also revealed that the new chloride titanium dioxide project has launched a new coastal chloride titanium dioxide project in the Lianyungang area, and has completed feasibility studies, program demonstrations, preliminary designs, etc.: from 2014 to 2017, In Lianyungang, two 80,000-ton/year chlorinated titanium dioxide production lines will be added; from 2018 to 2020, two more 80,000-ton/year chlorinated titanium dioxide production lines will be added. At that time, the total production capacity of titanium dioxide by chloride method will reach 320,000 tons.

In an internal meeting of the industry, the leader of Luohe Xingmao said that the chloride titanium dioxide project has been successful and hopes to conduct more technical exchanges with peers. After expressing this meaning, he also specifically emphasized that his words were sincere and not polite.

The reporter found that in the domestic chlorination pioneer team, the phenomenon of ignoring competition and emphasizing communication is very obvious. However, at an industry conference, the executives of the above two titanium dioxide companies communicated frankly about the technology of chlorination titanium dioxide. , It seems that there is no concern about competitors becoming stronger at all.

Cai Xubo, general manager of "Haoke Yuntai", an e-commerce trading platform that has been involved in the titanium dioxide industry for many years, said that from the current titanium dioxide production capacity in 2014, the production capacity of chlorinated titanium dioxide under construction is about 730,000 tons per year. "Starting up the titanium dioxide chloride process" is no longer just a smoke bomb for big companies to intimidate domestic opponents, and real funds have been invested in it.

Dilemma of sulfuric acid process

At the 2014 chairman meeting of the China Titanium Dioxide Association, a governing unit was shocked to hear that 6 companies were building production lines for chloride-process titanium dioxide, and said, "Can anyone who engages in chloride-process titanium dioxide get a message? You have succeeded, and there are plans to expand production capacity, we will no longer invest in sulfuric acid titanium dioxide production capacity.”

It is still difficult to determine whether the chloride titanium dioxide projects of other domestic enterprises can distract DuPont's attention. However, Pansteel executives took advantage of the opportunity of the "China Vanadium and Titanium Industry Expo" to frequently express that everything is ready and only owes the wind. "Panzhihua Iron and Steel is the first to break through the key production technology of chlorinated titanium dioxide in China." "Pangshan Iron and Steel now has the ability to build a production line of 100,000 tons of chlorinated titanium dioxide."

"The domestic demand for titanium dioxide is expected to reach 4 million tons in 2020. The national production capacity of sulfuric acid titanium dioxide production accounts for a large proportion, and there are also production lines for chlorinated titanium dioxide, but all raw materials are imported from abroad." Gan Yong, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering Said that if the raw materials of the chloride titanium dioxide production line have to be imported, thenIt is not meaningful.

Technical experts believe that although the technology of producing titanium slag by high-temperature carbonization and low-temperature chlorination technology has been established in China to provide raw materials for the chlorination process of titanium dioxide, the cost is not competitive.

Sun Peng, general manager of Shandong Dongjia Group, a leading titanium dioxide company, said that the chlorination method has achieved technological breakthroughs in the short term, but the progress and effect of other manufacturers' construction and completion of actual measurement units remains to be seen.

Yunnan Xinli also said that there is still a big gap between the current chloride-process titanium dioxide production line and DuPont. At present, the domestic chlorination titanium dioxide production line is relatively small, and the cost is relatively high. Only Panzhihua Iron and Steel has planned a 100,000-ton/year chlorination production line.

Qian Yong highly recommends the sulfuric acid titanium dioxide process of a local company in Panzhihua. The company uses high-quality acid-soluble titanium-rich materials as materials to solve environmental problems. In addition, Panzhihua Xinzhong titanium-containing hydrochloric acid pressure leaching, mother liquor split circulation to prepare artificial rutile and new acid-soluble titanium-rich materials.

A number of titanium dioxide enterprises believe that the original competent authorities believed that the solid waste treatment of titanium dioxide by sulfuric acid process would cause relatively large environmental pollution, but in fact this solid waste is much smaller than that of chlorinated titanium dioxide. In the past few years, sulfuric acid titanium dioxide projects were under the category of restricted development, which has been loosened in recent years. Now as long as the environmental protection requirements are met and the energy and water consumption meet the standards, there are no restrictions.