China Urged to Develop High-end NBR Products

By Liang Tao, Petrochina Petrochemical Research Institute Lanzhou Research Center

Nitrile rubber (NBR), a copolymer of acrylonitrile and butadiene, has excellent oil resistance, abrasion resistance, solvent resistance and heat resistance. Oil-proof NBR products are widely used in buildings, automotive parts, wires, cables, as well as in industries including petrochemical, aerospace, textiles, printing and shoemaking.

I. Domestic NBR production
At present, there are four NBR producers in China, PetroChina Lanzhou Petrochemical Company, Nantex Industry (Zhenjiang) Co., Ltd., Ningbo Shunze Rubber Co., Ltd. and Lanxess-TSRC (Nantong) Chemical Co., Ltd.
   Nantex Industry (Zhenjiang) Co., Ltd., built a 12 kt/a NBR plant in 2003, using the technology of Nantex (Taiwan). The company expanded its NBR capacity to 20 kt/a in 2005, and expanded again to 40 kt/a in 2008.
   PetroChina Lanzhou Petrochemical Company has three NBR production lines. The first line employs the thermopolymerization process, imported from the Soviet Union, and it has the capacity to produce 4.5 kt of hard NBR per year, mainly used in aerospace and other military areas. The second line is a 15 kt/a soft NBR production line, which uses technology of Zeon (Japan). The technology of the third line, which has a capacity of 50 kt/a, was developed by the Petrochina Petrochemical Research Institute Lanzhou Research Center.
   Ningbo Shunze Rubber Co., Ltd. constructed a 50 kt/a NBR plant using technology from Russia. The plant was put into operation in June 2011, and it can produce ten grades of NBR and five grades of NBR/PVC blends.
   Lanxess (Germany) built a 30 kt/a NBR plant in Nantong city of Jiangsu province jointly with TSRC (Taiwan) in May 2012.
   China’s NBR producers are listed in Table 1.

Table 1   NBR plants in China
Company    Capacity (kt/a)    Origin of technology    Product grades
PetroChina Lanzhou Petrochemical     4.5    Soviet Union    NBR2707, NBR3604, NBR1704
Company    15    Zeon (Japan)    N41, N32, N31, N21, DN003, DN401DN214, DN631
    50    PetroChina Lanzhou Company    3304,3305,3306,3308,2906,2907,4005
Nantex Industry (Zhenjiang) Co., Ltd    40    Nantex (Taiwan)    1051,1052,1053,4155,3365,3345,2875
Ningbo Shunze Rubber Co., Ltd.    50    S.V. Lebedev Synthetic Rubber     3355
        Research Institute
Lanxess-TSRC (Nantong) Chemical     30    Lanxess    3345C,3370C,3950C, etc
Co., Ltd.

II. Capacity increases rapidly
In recent years, Petrochina Petrochemical Research Institute Lanzhou Research Center has developed several special NBR products, such as powder NBR and liquid NBR, relying on the facilities in PetroChina Lanzhou Petrochemical Company. Besides, the center has developed a 50 kt/a NBR production line with independent intellectual property rights of core technology through integrated innovation. Based on two original product grades, NBR 2907 and NBR 3305, the center has developed several new products including NBR2906, NBR3304, NBR3306 and NBR3308. Two products that have medium content of acrylonitrile, NBR2906 and NBR2907, are suitable for applications requiring good cold tolerance and can be used in making industrial products including foaming insulating materials, oil-proof hoses, membranes and rollers, as well as parts for airplanes, automobiles and railways. In particular, NBR 2906, whose Mooney viscosity is between 62 and 68, is developed according to user requirements. NBR products which have medium-high content of acrylonitrile, such as NBR3304, NBR3305, NBR3306 and NBR3308, are mainly used in fields where high-grade oil-proof properties are required, like O-rings, oil pipelines, oil belts, rubber linings, fuel hoses, seals, gaskets, printing rolls and textile rolls. NBR3304, which has Mooney viscosity between 40 and 50, is a new product developed according to the requirements of manufacturers of automotive seals, trumpets and hoses. Moreover, PetroChina Petrochemical Research Institute has also developed functional and high-performance NBR products, such as hydrogenated NBR (HNBR) , fast curing NBR and low acrylonitrile content NBR.
   A 60 kt/a NBR plant, a joint venture between Jiangsu GPRO Group Co., Ltd. and GRUPO KUO (Mexico), is being constructed in Nanjing Chemical Industry Park and will be put into operation in 2013. In March 2012, a 30 kt/a high-performance NBR plant started construction in Anqing city of Anhui province. In October 2011, SIBUR (Russia) and Sinopec have signed a framework agreement under which the two companies plan to built a 50 kt/a NBR plant jointly in Shanghai using the technologies of SIBUR. If all the NBR facilities mentioned above are put into operation as planned, China’s total capacity will reach 329.5 kt/a by 2015, and overcapacity is on the horizon.

III. Suggestions
In order to fulfill the demand for high-performance rubber parts from the automobile industry and oil exploration and refining, foreign NBR producers have developed various special NBR products featuring excellent properties and special applications, including HNBR, carboxyl NBR (XNBR), powder NBR (PNBR), liquid NBR (LNBR), fast curing NBR, NBR copolymerized with reactive non-extractable antioxidants, partially crosslinked NBR, NBR blends and copolymers. These special products have expanded the applications of NBR, increased the market demand for NBR products, and become an important part of NBR products. Unfortunately, domestic NBR producers can manufacture only a few grades of NBR, and almost all special NBR products consumed in China are imported. Therefore, there is still a lot of room to develop high-end NBR products in China. Domestic producers should accelerate the development of plasticized NBR, fast curing NBR, nano-modified NBR, multi-component copolymers of NBR, HNBR and NBR blends. In particular, NBR products used in the automobile industry should be developed, since the demand for them is increasing rapidly.