Technology
September 28, 2023
HPPO Propylene Oxide Process Issues
Frequent Explosion Accidents: What are the Dangers of Hydrogen Peroxide?
PUdaily | Updated: September 21, 2023
Following the explosion occurred at the hydrogen peroxide production area of Luxi Chemical, a subsidiary of Sinochem Holdings, on May 1, which resulted in 9 deaths, 1 injury, and 1 person missing, another explosion occurred in the hydrogen peroxide workshop at Risun Chemical on September 14. It is the second major hydrogen peroxide accident that has occurred within China in 2023.
Why is hydrogen peroxide so dangerous?
Electrolysis, anthraquinone (AQ), isopropanol oxidation, electrochemical cathode reduction of oxygen, and auto-oxidation (AO) are commonly used in the production of hydrogen peroxide. The AQ method is currently the most mature method, and over 99% of hydrogen peroxide plants in China use this technology. The AQ process for hydrogen peroxide production has a high hazard coefficient. It involves using hazardous raw materials and going through hazardous processes to produce a hazardous product.
The first reaction in the production process of hydrogen peroxide, namely hydrogenation, is a hazardous chemical process that is subject to strict regulation. It has the following hazardous characteristics: (a) The reactants have explosiveness, and the explosion limit of hydrogen gas is 4-75%, making it highly flammable and explosive. (b) Hydrogenation is an exothermic reaction, and when hydrogen gas comes into contact with steel under high temperature and pressure, carbon molecules in the steel can react with hydrogen gas to form hydrocarbons, reducing the strength of the steel equipment and causing hydrogen embrittlement. (c) The regeneration and activation of catalysts can easily cause explosions. (d) The exhaust gas from the hydrogenation reaction contains unreacted hydrogen gas and other impurities, which can easily cause ignition or explosion during discharge. The second reaction in the hydrogen peroxide production – oxidation – is also a hazardous chemical process that is subject to strict regulation. It’s hazardous because that the peroxidation process has a strong risk of decomposition and explosion due to the presence of peroxide groups (-O-O-).
Hydrogen peroxide is currently an important raw material for the production of propylene oxide. The concentration of hydrogen peroxide products in China is mainly 27.5%. However, in recent years, there has been an increasing demand for high concentration products (>50%), as the use of high concentration hydrogen peroxide can effectively improve the production efficiency and product quality. The HPPO process often uses hydrogen peroxide with a concentration of 50% to 70%.
Currently, the key players in China’s HPPO-based propylene oxide industry are Jilin Shenhua and Sinopec Changling. In 2011, Jilin Shenhua introduced HPPO technology from Degussa and Uhde, with an investment of CNY 2.5 billion, and built the first and largest HPPO plant in China with a scheduled capacity of 300 ktpa. The plant started operations in July 2014. In 2013, Sinopec planned to adopt independently developed HPPO technology and invested about CNY 1.28 billion to build a 100 ktpa industrial plant at the company’s Changling Branch. The plant was completed in July 2014, and successful trial operation was conducted on December 6 of the same year. This marked Sinopec as the third company in the world to own the patent for producing propylene oxide using hydrogen peroxide technology, breaking the monopoly of foreign countries on this technology.
In addition to the aforementioned two producers, Taixing Yida Chemical (independent R&D), Qixiang Tengda (authorized by Evonik and ThyssenKrupp Uhde), Jincheng Petrochemical (independently developed by China Tianchen Engineering), and Jiahong New Material (using the process owned by China Catalyst Holding Co., Ltd) have also successfully operated their HPPO facilities in recent years. The current production capacity of HPPO (Hydrogen Peroxide to Propylene Oxide) plants in China has reached 1.55 mtpa.
However, the current stability of HPPO facilities is poor, with frequent shutdowns and maintenance issues. Although there are many newly completed or planned HPPO projects, there are still significant uncertainties and obstacles. The main reasons are as follows:
1) Inadequate hydrogen peroxide supply: Due to its unstable and highly explosive nature, hydrogen peroxide cannot be transported over long distances. It has a limited sales radius (300-500 km). Currently, hydrogen peroxide production in China is mainly concentrated in East China (63%), North China (6%), and Central China (14%), primarily located in chemical-intensive provinces such as Shandong, Hubei, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang. Southwest (4%), northwest (2%), and northeast (6%) regions have minimal production capacity, resulting in an imbalance between production layout and market size. On one hand, in some areas with concentrated downstream industries, there is a supply shortage of hydrogen peroxide, resulting in high transportation costs. On the other hand, some regions have excessive production facilities, with capacity far exceeding demand. Therefore, the issue of hydrogen peroxide supply needs to be addressed. The construction of new hydrogen peroxide plants requires sufficient hydrogen resources and faces difficulties in approval due to the classification of hydrogen peroxide as a hazardous chemical.
2) The production requires high-concentration hydrogen peroxide, while the preparation of high-concentration hydrogen peroxide presents certain difficulties. Currently, in Jilin Shenhua’s plant, the required 70% hydrogen peroxide is supplied by Evonik. The high cost leads to poor profitability of the plant.
3) In the HPPO process, hydrogen peroxide has high activity and can produce some aldehyde impurities during the production process, which can have an impact on downstream production.
August 7, 2023
The Fine Print
Privacy Storm Brewing As Zoom’s Updated Terms Greenlight AI Model Training With User Data
by Tyler Durden
Monday, Aug 07, 2023 – 12:25 PM
Zoom has added a clause to its Terms-of-Service (TOS) which allows the video conferencing company to use customer-generated content for any purpose they see fit, including to train artificial intelligence (AI) models, with no opt-out.
Zoom’s TOS, last revised on July 26th, conceals a concerning caveat. Nestled within section 10.4, for those brave enough to venture, is language that confers upon Zoom a carte blanche right to exploit what it coins as “Service Generated Data” (SGD). This expansive designation encompasses a cornucopia of user-generated information – from innocuous telemetry data to incisive diagnostic insights – all grist for the AI mill.
Section 10.4 also describes the company’s use of Customer Content (defined as “data, content, files, documents, or other materials”), not just telemetry data and the like, which it can use “for the purpose of product and service development, marketing, analytics, quality assurance, machine learning, artificial intelligence, training, testing, improvement of the Services, Software, or Zoom’s other products, services, and software, or any combination thereof.”
The company makes clear that it will be using data for, among other things, fine-tuning AI models and algorithms. The potential consequences are manifold, raising red flags for privacy pundits and sparking debates over the boundaries of user consent.
Zoom’s data net is cast even wider with a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license. This legal carte blanche emboldens Zoom to undertake a multitude of actions that span the entire data lifecycle. From reconstituting, republishing, and accessing user content to the deep recesses of data modification, redistribution, and algorithmic processing, the breadth of Zoom’s dominion over user-generated data now defies conventional comprehension.
Zoom contends that these data maneuvers are vital to service provision, bolstering software quality, and enhancing the broader Zoom ecosystem. The augmentation of AI capabilities, epitomized by Zoom IQ, has been touted as a beacon of collaboration, promising efficient meeting summaries, task automation, and optimized follow-ups, all enabled by the seamless integration of user data.
“With the introduction of these new capabilities in Zoom IQ, an incredible generative AI assistant, teams can further enhance their productivity for everyday tasks, freeing up more time for creative work and expanding collaboration,” said Zoom chief product officer, Smita Hashim. “There is no one-size-fits-all approach to large language models, and with Zoom’s federated approach to AI, we are able to bring powerful capabilities to our customers and users through Zoom’s own models as well as our partners’ models.”
In 2021, Zoom agreed to settle a class-action privacy lawsuit for $86 million, after plaintiffs accused the company of violating the privacy of millions of users by sharing personal data with Facebook, LinkedIn and Google.
The controversial section of the TOS reads (emphasis ours):
Customer License Grant. You agree to grant and hereby grant Zoom a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license and all other rights required or necessary to redistribute, publish, import, access, use, store, transmit, review, disclose, preserve, extract, modify, reproduce, share, use, display, copy, distribute, translate, transcribe, create derivative works, and process Customer Content and to perform all acts with respect to the Customer Content: (i) as may be necessary for Zoom to provide the Services to you, including to support the Services; (ii) for the purpose of product and service development, marketing, analytics, quality assurance, machine learning, artificial intelligence, training, testing, improvement of the Services, Software, or Zoom’s other products, services, and software, or any combination thereof; and (iii) for any other purpose relating to any use or other act permitted in accordance with Section 10.3. If you have any Proprietary Rights in or to Service Generated Data or Aggregated Anonymous Data, you hereby grant Zoom a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license and all other rights required or necessary to enable Zoom to exercise its rights pertaining to Service Generated Data and Aggregated Anonymous Data, as the case
June 13, 2023
Butanediol in China
BDO Market Booms with Growing Demand in Traditional and Emerging Industries
ECHEMI2023-06-12
1,4-butanediol (BDO) is an influential organic and fine chemical raw material, widely used in textile, chemical and other fields. Demand for BDO has formed a significant driving force in recent years with the expansion of applications in emerging fields such as biodegradable plastics and lithium batteries, as well as the recovery of traditional downstream industries such as spandex and PBT plastics.
According to SteelHome, the BDO market is currently extremely hot, with prices rising sharply. The benchmark price of BDO in the East China market has exceeded 11000-11100 yuan/ton, with a growth to the past week. According to research by Shenwan Hongyuan Securities, China’s apparent BDO consumption is expected to reach about 4.47 million tons per year by 2025, and the compound annual growth rate of BDO demand from 2020 to 2025 will be 26.5 percent.
BDO’s traditional application areas are primarily spandex and PBT engineered plastics, with BDO’s downstream applications in the spandex industry chain and PBT engineered plastics reaching 51% and 26% respectively. The spandex market is extremely hot, with product prices up nearly 200 percent, as demand for textiles and clothing recovers and export orders rise. The PBT plastics sector is also showing a clear trend of growth, with increasing applications in new energy vehicles and charging devices.
In addition to traditional application areas, BDO is rapidly expanding its applications in emerging areas such as biodegradable plastics and lithium batteries. With the frequent introduction of domestic plastic reduction policies, the demand for biodegradable plastics is about to enter a period of explosive growth, and PBAT is expected to lead the way in the agricultural plastic film and packaging materials and other biodegradable plastic markets with well-established production technologies and high cost-effectiveness. As a major feedstock for PBAT, PBAT is expected to generate approximately 2.5 million tonnes/year of new demand for BDO by 2025. At the same time, BDO is an essential raw material in the hottest lithium battery industry chain, and its downstream NMP is an important solvent in the production process of lithium battery cathodes, as well as a cleaning agent for semiconductors and integrated circuits.
Due to the long-term low BDO product prices, companies can only barely maintain a break-even point, and the industry’s sluggish business environment severely hinders new capital expenditures. Currently, the d Chinese annual production capacity of BDO is about 1.45 million tons, and the demand gap exceeds 200,000 tons. Only two A-share listed companies, Zhongtai Chemical and Shaanxi Black Cat, have BDO production capacity, with a combined annual capacity of only 330,000 tons. The huge gap between supply and demand has attracted a group of domestic companies to ramp up production on a regular basis. More than 1.5 million tons of new BDO capacity are currently planned in China, but the construction of BDO capacity usually takes about two years and there is a certain commissioning period after completion to achieve stable production. The fastest new capacity will gradually enter the production release period in the second half of 2022. Many industry insiders believe that the mismatch between new capacity and downstream demand growth will keep this cycle of BDO shortages going for more than two years, and that the BDO business environment will continue to improve as a result.
Recently, the world’s largest BDO project with an annual production capacity of 900,000 tons was settled in Fujian. The project will help boost China’s new energy and environmental protection industries by using the large amount of hydrogen produced as a by-product of propane dehydrogenation to produce BDO, a new chemical material that can be used to produce lithium batteries, high-end spandex, fully biodegradable plastics and other products. The move is an important boost for China’s plasticization industry and will help promote the transformation and upgrading of the country’s chemical industry, as well as the development of new energy and environmental protection industries.
https://www.echemi.com/cms/1416474.html
Polybutylene adipate terephthalate
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
PBAT (short for polybutylene adipate terephthalate) is a biodegradable random copolymer, specifically a copolyester of adipic acid, 1,4-butanediol and terephthalic acid (from dimethyl terephthalate). PBAT is produced by many different manufacturers and may be known by the brand names ecoflex, Wango, Ecoworld, Eastar Bio, and Origo-Bi. It is also called poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) and sometimes polybutyrate-adipate-terephthalate[1] (a misnomer) or even just “polybutyrate”.[2] It is generally marketed as a fully biodegradable alternative to low-density polyethylene, having many similar properties including flexibility and resilience, allowing it to be used for many similar uses such as plastic bags and wraps.[3] It is depicted as a block co-polymer here due to the common synthetic method of first synthesizing two copolymer blocks and then combining them. However, it is important to note that the actual structure of the polymer is a random co-polymer of the blocks shown.
Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybutylene_adipate_terephthalate
April 21, 2023
Urethane Sciences Partners with Sanitized AG
SANITIZED AG completes EPA registration for
BBIT in the US
Burgdorf, April 20, 2023: Swiss-based SANITIZED AG receives EPA registration for Butylbenzisothiazolinone (BBIT) offering local stock availability to support the domestic market. BBIT is a best-in-class antimicrobial that provides effective protection against microbial attack, being a solution to degradation, loss of physical properties, and unpleasant odors.
BBIT is a powerful, safe, and versatile antimicrobial that has been designed to control the growth of microorganisms in a wide range of applications. It is highly effective and extensively commercialized in various formulations, including plastic compositions such as PVC, polyurethanes, silicone, polyesters, polyolefin, acrylics, rubber, etc.
“We are thrilled to be able to supply BBIT to the US market,” said Eduardo Costa, Head of Business Unit Polymers Additives of SANITIZED AG. “Over the last years we have invested and developed infrastructure to ensure continuity supply to the growing demand in the US. Furthermore, BBIT offers a safe choice for controlling the growth of microorganisms. The EPA registration is proof of the safety and effectiveness of our product, and we are confident that it will meet the needs of customers across the country.”
Sanitized has partnered-up with Urethane Sciences to supply BBIT to the polyurethane foam industry in North America. BBIT is available for purchase through our authorized distributor Urethane Sciences, in Berlin, NJ. For more information about the product, contact them at orders@usci.net.
Urethane Sciences LLC is an innovation partner, providing research and development, technical service support, supply of chemicals, and testing capabilities for the polyurethane foam comfort space. In our world class Berlin NJ facility, we work closely with our clients to design, create, prototype and support “top of the bed” products that create consumer value. Our extensive experience in providing solutions to problems now includes capabilities to bring a fresh, new relationship approach to improving understanding and application knowledge to the complex anti-microbial world. www.urethanesciences.com
Sanitized® adding value since 1935
Sanitized® enhances textiles, polymer products as well as paints and coatings. The company develops its innovative technologies in Switzerland and markets them worldwide. The Sanitized® additives ensure odor-free textiles, the responsible protection of paints and treat polymers permanently with a hygiene function and material protection. The all-embracing service for customers is unique: Standardized tests in the TecCenter, technical and regulatory advice, marketing support. Manufacturers and consumers have relied on the globally trusted Sanitized® brand for decades. It enables differentiation in the market and creates tangible added value for customers. www.sanitized.com
April 10, 2023
Spandex Product Development
New Breakthrough in Differentiated Spandex May Trigger New Growth Points for PTMEG
PUdaily | Updated: April 10, 2023
On March 29, during Yarn Expo Spring 2023, Lianyungang LDZ New Aoshen Spandex Co., Ltd. launched two differentiated spandex products, temperature-sensitive shape memory spandex and deodorant spandex, at its own new product launch event. According to the manufacturer’s introduction, the elasticity of temperature-sensitive shape memory spandex can change with temperature, achieving characteristics of easy wear below the transition temperature and high resilience at or above the transition temperature; while deodorant spandex maintains water resistance while having the function of neutralizing and decomposing odor molecules.
In China’s total synthetic fiber output, spandex accounts for only 1-2%. It is usually used in the manufacturing of some elastic fabrics, especially sportswear and leisurewear. With the improvement of mass consumption, people’s requirements for fabrics have gradually increased. At present, China’s spandex industry has become quite mature, and the industry’s growth rate has been greater than 10% in recent years, especially the demand for differentiated and high-end spandex has grown significantly. As the main downstream product of PTMEG, spandex accounts for about 90% of PTMEG consumption. In recent years, the growth of the spandex industry has also driven the stable development of the PTMEG industry.
Recent Market Trends: Since the beginning of March, China’s spandex market has been showing a sustained mild weakness. The post-pandemic demand recovery was not strong as expected, and the national consumption sentiment in the textile industry was not high. The peak season for spandex was slightly shorter than in previous years, and prices fell slightly during the month. By the end of March, spandex manufacturers’ orders gradually decreased, and there were few summer orders obtained by them. Although the operating rate could still be maintained at around 80%, due to the inability of spandex to be stored for a long time, spandex manufacturers’ confidence declined, and their enthusiasm for purchasing feedstocks was difficult to sustain. Against this backdro, it has been difficult for PTMEG suppliers to continue supporting the market, and prices have fallen.
Market Outlook: Owing to the international political situation and economic conditions, some countries in the Middle East and South Asia are facing difficulties in approving letters of credit, and the strike wave in many European countries is affecting port operations. The pattern of weak overseas demand may be difficult to change in the short term. Chinese demand has rebounded visibly, but the speed of economic recovery is still unable to quickly boost the textile industry. Downstream manufacturers in the PTMEG-spandex industry chain mainly made replenishment purchases on rigid demand, and it is difficult to change the market weakness in the short term. However, in the long run, the textile industry is still one of the pillar industries in China’s economy. With the growth of the national economy, the demand for textile and its upstream feedstocks will continue to grow. Moreover, the emergence of differentiated spandex will expand the application fields from simple knitted fabrics to medical bandages, healthcare products, car interiors, artificial organ materials and many other areas, thus opening up broader market space. In the industry landscape with multiple growth points, there is still considerable room for growth in the spandex industry, which will drive the positive expectation for PTMEG consumption.
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