Yantai Wanhua's "Universal Material": MDI And Its Application

The thermal insulation of the external walls of the Olympic venues, the insulation of the permafrost subgrade of the Qinghai Tibet railway, and the renovation of CCTV's new building are the use of the MDI (two phenyl methane diisocyanate series product) produced by Yantai Wanhua polyurethane Limited by Share Ltd (hereinafter referred to as Yantai Wanhua). And 8 years ago, this is unthinkable. Before 2000, MDI almost all depended on imports. An expert in Yantai has evaluated the large-scale MDI technology development and industrialization project with annual output of 200 thousand tons, which is independently innovating by Wanhua, and an industry expert has evaluated it as "successfully breaking the blockade of MDI technology by foreign companies for 40 years, leading the Chinese isocyanate industry out of the predicament, setting up a model for the introduction, digestion and absorption of China's chemical industry, and ensuring the survival and development of China's polyurethane industry". Market polyurethane can be widely used in various fields of the national economy. The polyurethane protective coating on the submarine, the polyurethane thermal insulation material in the refrigerator, and the polyurethane interior decoration of the car are all different. MDI is the main raw material for preparing polyurethane, and the polyurethane with excellent heat insulation, elasticity, wear resistance and oil resistance is the fifth largest plastic in the world. In the next few years, global demand for MDI will continue to grow strongly. Although the US housing market is slowing down, the demand for MDI and its insulation products in the US commercial buildings and the Asia Pacific and European regions will continue to maintain rapid growth in the global MDI market. This is one of the largest MDI manufacturers in the world, and Toni H. hunkings, President of Huntsman polyurethane business, recently analyzed the conclusions drawn from the MDI market. Tony Hankins pointed out that the rising demand for polyurethane products will drive the rapid growth of MDI demand. He predicts that the global MDI market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 7%~8%. Asia is expected to grow at a two digit rate. Europe will grow at a high single digit rate and the US growth rate will be slightly lower. By 2011, global MDI demand will exceed 4 million 800 thousand tons, and supply will remain tight. "Global MDI demand growth is 2 times the growth rate of GDP, and the global consumption of more than 4 million tons in 2006. China's demand growth rate is 3 times the GDP growth rate, and consumption in 2006 is more than 600 thousand tons, ranking second in the world. Before 2000, China's MDI almost all relied on imports. Wanhua is the only domestic enterprise that can produce MDI in China. " Ding Jiansheng, general manager of Yantai Wanhua, introduced the 2007 National Science and technology award award-winning project week. Due to the complexity of MDI technology, it has long been monopolized by the four multinational corporations, such as BASF and Bayer. In the late 70s of last century, in order to support the production line of polyurethane synthetic leather, Yantai Wanhua introduced a set of 10 thousand tons / year MDI production equipment equivalent to international technology level in 60s from Japan. Due to the lack of core technology, the operation of the plant was very difficult, and it failed to reach production in ten years. In the case of backward technology, high consumption, poor quality and obvious lack of competitiveness, Yantai Wanhua has repeatedly requested foreign companies to transfer MDI technology, which has been repeatedly rejected. In the late 80s of last century, in order to meet the rapid growth of domestic demand for MDI, Yantai Wanhua embarked on the road of self introduction, digestion, absorption and innovation. On the basis of the absorption and absorption of imported devices, aiming at the international leading position, adopting advanced development mode and organization network, we begin to research and develop MDI technology. In 1999, Yantai Wanhua finally developed an annual production capacity of 20 thousand tons of MDI manufacturing technology with independent intellectual property rights, and successfully developed 40 thousand tons / year, 80 thousand tons / year and 160 thousand tons / year MDI manufacturing technology in 2000~2003, and realized industrialization. Yantai Wanhua's breakthrough in MDI manufacturing technology made China the fourth country to have the technology after Germany, the United States and Japan. Innovation MDI manufacturing process is extremely complex, mainly including shrinkage, photochemical and separation of three processes. The development of large scale MDI production technology in Yantai Wanhua's annual output of 200 thousand tons is based on the core level model, with the key reaction process development as the core, and the concise and efficient reliable industrial device as the process development and engineering principle. The integrated process of the whole technology is enlarged and integrated to form a comprehensive chemical process technology with comprehensive competitive advantages and international leading. The main innovations are as follows: first, the development of multistage full continuous condensation reaction technology is adopted, which not only improves the product quality, reduces the side reaction products to the minimum, improves the operational stability of the reaction device greatly, but also improves the capacity of the unit volume reactor 5~7 times, and completely eliminates the blockage of the pipeline. At the same time, the technology is fast and exothermic, and the viscosity of the system is high, which requires flexible design of molecular structure. At present, foreign companies mainly adopt intermittent or semi continuous process, which has the following disadvantages: low production efficiency, high energy consumption, complex operation and poor quality stability. A professional said: "BASF and Huntsman jointly constructed in Shanghai MDI device is semi continuous process. The Japanese companies that used to introduce technology still use intermittent technology. The two is the development of high efficiency liquid film jet light gasification reaction technology. Phosgene reaction is the most important process in the production process of MDI. Its reaction speed is very fast, and its side reactions are many. The products are slurry solid and easily clogged with equipment. The traditional stirred tank reactor requires a large number of solvent dilution and excess phosgene cycle. The efficiency is low, energy consumption is high, operation stability and safety are poor (15 thousand ton technology adopts kettle type reaction technology). Through the development of various high efficiency photochemical reactors, Wanhua of Yantai finally selected the efficient liquid film photochemical gasification reaction technology, and realized the high-speed mixing of molecular level in milliseconds, and integrated with the existing system. The three is the development of rectification crystallization integrated MDI separation technology. MDI is a thermosensitive substance and must be separated under high vacuum (1mmHg column). The first generation (Wanhua 15 thousand ton Technology) MDI batch distillation process has 10% residues, and the product is of poor quality and high energy consumption. The second generation continuous distillation technology has no residue, but its color is not ideal, its energy consumption is high, and its production scale is limited. At present, BASF, Bayer and other multinational companies adopt similar technologies (single line scale below 80 thousand tons / year). The new three generation distillation and crystallization integrated MDI separation technology developed by Yantai Wanhua has reached 200 thousand tons / year (the largest scale in the world) without a single separation capacity, and its energy consumption has been reduced by 30%. The four is the technology development of CO production of waste carbon dioxide and pure oxygen and coke. The technology uses a new technology of carbon dioxide and coke combined gasification. The gasification capacity of a single gasifier is increased by 4 times and the content of carbon monoxide is obviously improved. The new wet desulphurization process greatly reduces the sulfur content in carbon monoxide, simplifies the post-processing technology, and greatly reduces investment costs and operating costs. The five is the technology of brine recovery and reuse. The brackish water produced by the MDI device and the chlor alkali plant are treated by oxidation and reduction, and the recycling of refined brine has been achieved. The combination of two wastes has been realized and the waste has been changed into waste. Yantai Wanhua is also the world's first MDI manufacturer to realize the comprehensive utilization of waste water. The 200 thousand tonnes of large-scale MDI manufacturing technology developed by Wanhua in Yantai not only successfully achieved industrialization in Wanhua Ningbo Industrial Park, but also maintained stable operation and improved product quality. "PK" Yantai Wanhua 200 thousand tons of large-scale MDI manufacturing technology from the "birth" began to become the target of competition, and in multinational companies with many "PK" has been the lead. According to BASF and Bayer Shanghai MDI project feasibility study report, Yantai Wanhua technology energy consumption is nearly 10% lower than that of transnational corporations, which is nearly 60% lower than that of the original 15 thousand tons. 200 thousand tons / year equivalent MDI main unit investment, BASF (Shanghai) needs 3 billion 140 million yuan, Bay Er Er needs 3 billion 620 million yuan, DOW needs 3 billion 200 million yuan, and Yantai Wanhua is 2 billion 100 million yuan. On the same scale investment, Yantai Wanhua is 30%~40% lower than that of multinational companies. In terms of product quality comparison, Yantai Wanhua products won the product's chroma (APHA) 30 and NCO content by 31.3%, compared with the product color (APHA) of the world's major MDI manufacturers and NCO content of the world's major MDI manufacturers. On the contrast of technology maturity, from the operation of three new MDI installations in the world in twenty-first Century: DOW chemistry in 2003, the new 230 thousand ton / year MDI device in the US has been running unstable for a long time, and three years only reached the design load (three line photochemical system). BASF and Huntsman in Shanghai joint venture newly built 240 thousand ton / year MDI installation material in August 2006, still can not operate normally (double line photochemical system). The 200 thousand ton / year MDI plant completed in November 2005 in Wanhua, Yantai, was successfully delivered at one time, and its output was fast and stable (full continuous single line system). It is through technological innovation that the market share of Yantai Wanhua in the first half of 2007 reached 36%, while in 1998 it accounted for only 8%. Technological innovation has enabled Yantai Wanhua to have international competitiveness and set up 7 branches overseas. Its products have successfully entered the mainstream market of Europe and America, selling well in more than 50 countries and regions, and exported to 200 million US dollars in 2007. Universal material Yantai Wanhua annual output of 200 thousand tons of large-scale MDI technology development and industrialization projects to break the foreign technology blockade, making China become the third country after the German and the United States has world-class MDI manufacturing technology. In the past five years, the achievement has achieved 18 billion yuan in sales revenue and 5 billion 600 million yuan in profits and taxes. The annual capacity increased from 15 thousand tons in 1998 to 340 thousand tons in 2007 (two sets in Yantai and Ningbo). This technology has enabled Yantai Wanhua to become the largest and most competitive MDI manufacturer in the Asia Pacific region. At the same time, the technology promotes the downstream industry to form a 150 billion yuan output value, and strongly promotes the development of China's polyurethane and related industries. MDI has driven the rapid development of downstream industries of spandex, shoemaking and artificial tanning. The output of Chinese shoes has exceeded 10 billion pairs / years. China made over 50% of the world's leather making. MDI is the main raw material for the manufacture of high quality sole and artificial tanning. MDI is the key raw material for producing high elastic spandex fiber. MDI is supporting the rapid development of automobiles and other industries. Car seats, handrails, headrest, steering wheel, bumper and so on are all polyurethane materials made by MDI. Each vehicle has an average of 18 kilograms of polyurethane, and polyurethane is widely used in other transportation vehicles. MDI is of great significance to national defense construction, and can be applied to rocket insulation, sealing rings, armored vehicles, submarine protective layer, etc. MDI has broad prospects for the preparation of crop straw board. MDI as a binder to produce crop straw board has prominent environmental effects. First, to reduce forest deforestation; the two is to release formaldehyde from furniture products; the three is to increase farmers' income by more than 200 yuan per ton of straw. Yantai Wanhua has successfully developed the world's first commercially oriented crop straw board production line, which is being promoted nationwide. In application, there is also a big market, that is, the field of building energy efficiency. Polyurethane foam prepared by MDI is the best building thermal insulation material at present. Construction and building materials are China's largest energy consuming sector (accounting for 47.5% of total energy consumption). China has an annual construction area of 2 billion square meters and a stock of 42 billion square meters. At present, only 5% of the new buildings in China adopt thermal insulation measures, of which less than 10% of polyurethane is used. Expert comment: MDI device is the most important, most important and largest raw material in polyurethane production, and plays an important role in the development of polyurethane industry. &nb