Heavy-Duty Anticorrosive Coatings from China Widely Accepted in Large Construction Projects

By Yu Qingzhang, Yuxiang Chemical (Dalian) Co., Ltd.

The brisk construction of petrochemical plants, railways and other infrastructures in China in recent years has provided a vast market for heavy-duty anticorrosive coatings. China is the biggest producer and market for coatings, and in particular, heavy-duty anticorrosive coatings, consuming 1.75 million tons of heavy-duty anticorrosive coatings in 2012 (13.7% of the total consumption of coatings in China and more than 40% of the total consumption of heavy-duty anticorrosive coatings in the world). The coating market in China grew further in 2013, with the total output of coatings reaching 13.03 million tons. The main heavy-duty anticorrosive coatings produced in China are epoxies, polyurethanes, chlorinated rubbers, fluorine resins, silicone resins, polyurea elastomers, acrylics and zinc-enriched primers. Epoxies dominate the market, with a share of 33%-39%.

1. Chinese coatings firms access large construction projects

In the coating sector of China, heavy-duty anticorrosive coatings are products that opened to the outside world the earliest and have the highest degree of internationalization. Well-known international heavy-duty anticorrosive coating producers such as Hempel of Denmark, International Coating Products of Britain, Jotun of Norway, Chugoku of Japan, PPG of the United States, AkzoNobel of Netherlands and KCC of Korea are trying to occupy markets in China on the strength of their advantages in technology, branding and management. They have already localized production and made strategic outlays. A competition mode with the high-end market mainly held by foreign enterprises and the low-end market mainly held by domestic enterprises has formed. In container coatings and ship coatings with high technical requirements, products made by foreign-owned or joint venture enterprises have a market share of 80%. The market of heavy-duty anticorrosive coatings used in marine oil drilling platforms and other marine facilities is totally controlled by AkzoNobel, PPG, Hempel, Jotun and Kansai of Japan. Jotun holds a market share of 60% in heavy-duty anticorrosive coatings used in offshore structures.
By relying on independent innovation, high-quality low-price products and timely thoughtful services, domestic enterprises have also made outstanding achievements in the heavy-duty anticorrosive coating sector in recent years. Great quantities of heavy-duty anticorrosive coatings produced in China are used in on-shore anticorrosive systems such as steel structures, railways, expressways and petrochemical plants. Shanghai Kailin Painting Co., Ltd. and Xiamen Sunrui Ship Coating Co., Ltd. both hold considerable market shares in coatings for steel structures and ships, and Jiangsu Lanling Chemical Group Co., Ltd. and Yuxiang Chemical (Dalian) Co., Ltd. both make heavy-duty anticorrosive coatings that have gained extensive applications both at home and abroad. Some large projects using heavy-duty anticorrosive coatings such as the National Center for the Performing Arts, buildings of the World Expo 2010 Shanghai, the Bayuquan project of Anshan Iron & Steel Group Co., Ltd., launch towers of Shenzhou spacecrafts, the Hangzhou Bay Bridge, the Shanghai Yangtze River Tunnel Bridge and terminals of Zhanjiang Port are all protected by coatings produced by domestic enterprises.

2. Environmental protection promotes industrial upgrades

The heavy-duty anticorrosive coating sector of China has made brilliant achievements in recent years. Both output and product performance have been upgraded greatly. The application breadth and the application durability have been extended. Energy conservation, emission reduction, environmental protection and low-carbon construction advocated by the state have played a positive role in the course of development. More stringent requirements have also been posed for the anticorrosive coating sector. With the growing awareness of environmental protection, high-solid content, solvent-free and water-soluble anticorrosive coatings are developed to gradually replace traditional solvent varieties. “Green” and resource-saving anticorrosive coatings, mainly compound phosphate antirust coatings, are being developed to replace toxic, polluting heavy metal anticorrosive primers such as red lead and chromates. Efforts are also made to develop environment-friendly long-acting antifouling coatings, surface-tolerant coating technologies, new application processes and technologies with energy conservation and emission reduction that simplify application equipment and eliminate processes with high energy consumption.
2.1 Laws and regulations get stricter
Policies and standards for coatings issued in China in 2014 are stricter than those of previous years. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology approved 811 industrial standards in the year. One hundred and forty nine of them are new or revised chemical industry standards. Many different aspects of coatings are covered in the standards. Examples include HG/T4561-2013 (Methods for Testing the Antifogging Property of Coatings), HG/T4562-2013 (Unsaturated Polyester Putties), HG/T4563-2013 (Irreversible Temperature-Indicating Coatings) and HG/T4564-2013 (Surface-tolerant Epoxy Coatings).
Facing stricter international and domestic laws, regulations and policies concerning environmental protection, safety and occupational health, the technologies for coating production and application must be improved constantly. In this way, the upgrading of the coatings sector is accelerated, and the sustainable and sound development of anticorrosive coatings is promoted.
2.2 Research on coating production/application should be strengthened to ensure reliability of products
The quality of coating application directly influences the quality of construction projects. It is therefore imperative for the coating sector to strengthen systematic management of the integration of coating production and application. Only when the coating production and application are integrated can reliability of products be ensured. The development of application technologies and processes will in turn promote R&D and the upgrading of coating products. To reduce the cost of coating application and substrate sand blasting pretreatment, general-purpose surface-tolerant primers have been developed in recent years. The wet sand blasting process and the compressed water rust-removing process have boosted the development of wet rust surface primers. New coating application processes have also raised requirements on the workability of coatings and helped improve the performance of heavy-duty anticorrosive coatings. In actual practice, efforts should also be made to enforce codes for coating application and to upgrade the capability of technical services.
2.3 Environment-friendly high-performance products are the priorities for development
Anticorrosive coatings will be developed toward environment-friendly, energy-saving, high-performance and functional varieties. The coatings sector is also encouraged to develop low-polluting and hazard-free coatings such as water-soluble, solvent-free, high-solid, powdered, high-performance, multi-functional, surface-tolerant and heavy metal free varieties. New varieties such as water-soluble coatings for track vehicles, water-soluble coatings for airplanes, high-solid or solvent-free coatings for ballast tanks, anticorrosive coatings for low surface treatment, nanometer modified coatings, conductive polyaniline coatings, single-component moist-solidifying polyurethane coatings, water-soluble coatings for new ships, strippable protective coatings and new antifouling coatings with no pollution to marine environments, as well as super compressed water jetting cleaning technology, have come into being and aroused widespread attention.
Developing environment-friendly industrial heavy-duty anticorrosive coatings is a high-tech project being actively explored by many advanced countries. Of greater interest here, it is a new sector in China. Owing to early linkages to foreign technologies and government policy, some environmentally benign, highly effective, Chinese heavy-duty anticorrosive coatings have already gained extensive applications. In the domestic market of heavy-duty anticorrosive coatings, the share held by conventional solvent varieties has already dropped to 48% and the share is 3% for solvent-free varieties, 41% for high-solid varieties and 8% for water-soluble varieties.