By Luo Yan, Xinjiang Tianye Group
Among PVC’s applications worldwide, the building materials enjoy the largest share and the fastest growth rate. PVC, used as chemical building materials, has excellent performance in energy saving, ecological protection, improvement of living environment, improvement of building function and quality, and convenient construction. In China, PVC building materials only account for less than 30% of the PVC plastic products, showing a huge development potential.
PVC profile doors and windows market enters maturity
PVC doors and windows belong to the key chemical building materials promoted by the state. As of 2018, the penetration rate of PVC doors and windows in the country has basically reached 75% to 80%. As China's economy is growing rapidly, the demand for PVC doors and windows is also continuing increasing. This industry will enjoy a relatively high growth for a long time in China.
At present, the energy consumption of building heating, ventilation, air conditioning and lighting accounts for about 27% of total social energy consumption in China. In building energy consumption, the energy lost through doors and windows accounts for 40% to 50% of the total building energy consumption, so the door and window materials are essential for energy saving. The thermal conductivity and heat transfer coefficient of PVC profiles are significantly lower than that of aluminum alloys, steel and wood, and the prices of PVC doors and windows are 30% lower than those of aluminum alloy doors and windows.
China's PVC profiles for doors and windows mainly include white profiles, color profiles and plastic profiles. The white profile is the earliest developed and most used one for doors and windows, divided into solid color type and whitening type. The color PVC profiles mainly include four types: coated color profiles, co-extruded color profiles, painted color profiles and all-body color profiles. The plastic profile is a new PVC profile, developed recently. The rubber strip and the PVC profile are directly bonded together via co-extrusion technology. Such products are well-sealed and are increasingly favored in construction sector.
China's PVC profile market is seriously oversupplied and is also squeezed by the colored aluminum doors and windows. As people's requirements for the quality and style of PVC doors and windows become higher and higher, it is expected that in the next few years, two-color co-extrusion and plastic profiles with beautiful appearance, strong economic performance and good air tightness will be used and developed in a wider range.
PVC pipes for construction have great development potential
PVC pipe productions in developed countries are large and the products are widely used, with water supply pipes taking 33%, drainage pipes 22.3%, sewage pipes 15.7%, irrigation pipes 5.2%, gas pipes 0.8%, and other pipes 22.7%. PVC pipe consumption generally accounts for 70% to 80% of the total plastic pipe market. However, in China, PVC pipe only accounts for about 50% of the total plastic pipe, leaving a huge development space.
After the reform and opening up, China's plastic pipes began to be used in industrial and agricultural fields such as building sewage, water supply systems, and farmland irrigation. At present, the annual growth rate of China's plastic pipe market is 15%.
For PVC pipe, its development focus should be on improving production efficiency, developing new varieties, developing new application areas, and reducing costs. The first thing to do is to develop PVC water supply pipe. At present, most PVC plastic pipes in China are used for water drainage, and most factories do not produce PVC water supply pipes because of the high requirements on the water hygiene and water pressure of the water supply pipe. Secondly, it is necessary to strengthen the research and development of new varieties. Other PVC pipes, such as PVC heat-resistant pipes, heat-conducting pipes and anti-static pipes, can be produced on the same production lines.
Waterproof membranes have huge market spaces
At present, there are five commonly used waterproofing materials in the construction sector, including modified asphalt waterproofing membranes, polymer waterproofing membranes, waterproof coatings, sealing materials, waterproofing and plugging and sealing materials. Among them, polymer waterproofing membranes, including polyvinyl chloride (PVC), ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM), vinyl chloride (CPE), and thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO) have developed rapidly in recent years due to their excellent performance.
Among these polymer waterproofing membranes, PVC waterproofing membranes have advantages like good elasticity, small shrinkage, convenient construction, high elongation, no pollution, good appearance and aging resistance, etc. They are widely applied to roof waterproofing, underground waterproofing and even roof greening, and the market coverage is gradually increasing.
Decorative materials (floor, wallpaper, tile roof, etc.)
PVC elastic floor and rubber floor are high-tech floor coverings in the building industry. With the development of China's flooring industry, its market capacity is also expanding, and the industry will enter a period of rapid development. In 2018, China’s export volume of PVC flooring was 3.54 million tons. It is estimated that the consumption of PVC resin was about 1.6 million tons, accounting for 8.4% of the PVC consumption in that year.
PVC wallpaper not only has the characteristics of various colors, rich patterns, green environmental protection, short decoration period, dirt resistance and scrub resistance, but also meets the special requirements of fireproof, mildewproof and antibacterial. In Europe, the US, Southeast Asia and other countries and regions, PVC wallpaper has reached more than 80% popularity in home and public. However, in China, with only 20 years’ market awareness, PVC wallpaper’s production technology, color difference and bright edge problems have always plagued the improvement of the product quality.
Among many chemical building materials, environmentally friendly super weather-resistant synthetic resin tile/PVC wave tile (board) products occupy a prominent position. Because of the characteristics of light weight insulation, corrosion resistance, maintenance-free, easy to produce, convenient construction and reasonable price, they are widely used in warehouses, public buildings, bazaars, simple houses and other fields. However, PVC wave tile (board) products have weaknesses such as easy fading and poor aging resistance. Many PVC wave tile (board) producers are facing new technological breakthroughs. For instance, the new ASA/PVC co-extruded tile roofing material is an upgraded product of PVC wave board. "PVC/PMMA co-extruded wave plate (tile)" technology is a special co-extrusion process using modified PMMA material and PVC synthetic resin tile material, making the product revolutionized in weather resistance, anti-aging, impact resistance, high gloss, etc. Such breakthrough technology is extremely valuable.
Other products
There are many kinds of PVC building materials. In addition to the main types listed above, there are small products like sealing strips and plastic stair rails, but these products have a low proportion in the entire chemical building materials market and their production capacities are small.
