Urgent Need to Spur Commercialization of Halogenated IIR   

By Ren Yunfeng  CCN

An announcement recently made by Zhejiang Longsheng Group Co., Ltd. (SH: 600352) on technical advances of brominated IIR (BIIR) has aroused widespread attention. Today, only the United States and Germany own production technologies and units for BIIR and their technologies are not sold to others.
   Major varieties of halogenated IIR (HIIR) include chlorinated IIR (CIIR) and brominated IIR (BIIR). HIIR is a modified product produced from IIR through halogenation. Take BIIR for instance. It has the same low air permeability, high decay strength, aging resistance, weather resistance, ozone resistance and chemical resistance of conventional IIR, but also has special features such as small consumption of vulcanizing agents and great speed of vulcanization. BIIR can use various vulcanizing agents for vulcanization, which is impossible to IIR. BIIR can be used together with natural rubber, styrene butadiene rubber, nitrile rubber and chloroprene rubber. There is good vulcanizing adhesion between BIIR itself and also between BIIR and other rubbers. The vulcanizing adhesion of conventional IIR is relatively poor. The heat resistance of BIIR is also better than IIR.
   There are three major application sectors of HIIR in China - tires, medical rubber plugs and anticorrosion liners for environmental protection. In tires, owing to its good air tightness, HIIR is mainly used to produce inner liners of radial tires. With the constant output increase of radial tires, the consumption of HIIR will have an increase in China. It is expected that the demand for HIIR in the tire sector will reach 190 000 tons in 2012. In medical rubber plugs, as conventional IIR uses sulfur, accelerator and zinc oxide vulcanizing system or resin system, zinc oxide and sulfur have negative impacts on medical rubber plugs and the vulcanization speed of resins is too low, conventional IIR is usually not used as substrate of medical rubber plugs today and HIIR is used instead. In products made by the two major HIIR series, CIIR rubber plugs are mainly used in routine perfusion, vaccines, heparins and injection water. BIIR rubber plugs are mainly suitable for use in insulin, anesthetics and freeze-dried preparations. It is expected that the consumption of HIIR in medical rubber plugs will reach 35 000 tons in 2012. In the environmental protection sector, as chemical equipment and some units in power plants such as desulfurization towers operate in an environment of strong acids and alkalis, and easily corrode and age, rubber liners are mostly used in such equipment for anticorrosion and CIIR is the major variety. If 3 000 m2 of BIIR per 200MW is needed for use as liners in flue gas desulfurization units of power plants, there will be a BIIR liner market of at least 800 000m2 in 2012.
   Besides, the average annual growth of HIIR consumption in making chemical anticorrosion and sealing agents is also around 15%. It is therefore expected that the demand for HIIR in China will reach around 250 000 tons in 2012.
   The raw material for making HIIR is IIR. By the end of 2009, 11 units of six producers located in eight countries made IIR, and the total capacity was 1.090 million t/a.
   China only had one commercial unit in the past and only IIR could be produced. According to the latest information, the 30 000 t/a BIIR unit in Sinopec Beijing Yanshan Petrochemical Co., Ltd. started production in October 2010. A gap in the BIIR production in China is finally bridged. The company's IIR capacity is 75 000 t/a.
   To meet the constantly increasing market demand for IIR and especially HIIR, various major IIR producers in the world such as Lanxess of Germany, Exxon Mobil of the United States and Nizhnekamskneftekhim of Russia have plans to expand their capacity. Compared with the enormous market demand, there is still a huge gap in the production and supply of IIR in China. Producers in China have therefore also started to plan new projects. The long-time import dependence of HIIR in China will hopefully be greatly eased in the next few years.
   The consumption of HIIR in China already accounts for more than 60% of the total IIR consumption. There has however been no HIIR production in China for many years and the price here has always been high. Take BIIR for instance. The market price of BIIR in China is monopolized by imports. The highest selling price once reached RMB150 000 t/a. The price is around RMB55 000 per ton today, but the cost is only RMB20 000 per ton. An HIIR market volume of 250 000 tons a year is therefore very attractive.
   Jiangsu Nantong Dongteng Special Rubber Co., Ltd. developed a CIIR production technology in 2008 and constructed a 500 t/a production unit. The 1 000 t/a CIIR commercial production demonstration unit constructed by Zhuhai Aosheng Polymer Materials Co., Ltd. with the reaction extrusion technology developed by Jiangsu Shengjie Industrial Co., Ltd. put the main process flow through in October 2009. All of this indicates that China has already removed the bottleneck in the complete technology development and the commercial production of HIIR. It has been reported that Zhejiang Longsheng Group Co., Ltd. announced in December 2010 that it can already produce BIIR in a pilot unit and the product quality is relatively stable. The company has also started preparations for the construction of a 10 000 t/a commercial production unit.
   Needless to say, what should be most anticipated are still the BIIR expansion project of Sinopec Beijing Yanshan Petrochemical Co., Ltd. and the IIR project of Liaoning Panjin Zhenao Chemical Co., Ltd.


HIIR Units Planned for Construction or Expansion in China in the Next Few Years
Company
    Capacity (thousand t/a)
    Time for startup
    Remark

Sinopec Beijing Yanshan Petrochemical Co., Ltd.
    60
    2011
including 30 000 t/a HIIR
PetroChina Lanzhou Petrochemical Co., Ltd. and Jiangsu Jinpu Group Corporation
    60
    including a 30 000 t/a HIIR unit
    (It is reported that the project is tentatively halted.)
Liaoning Panjin Zhenao Chemical Co., Ltd.
    100
    2010 (first-phase 60 000 t/a)
    conventional IIR and HIIR
Source: CCR