Industry Pain Points Urgently Need to Be Solved, R&D is Imperative
As an important inorganic chemical pigment, titanium dioxide is widely used in coatings, plastics, papermaking, inks and many other fields, known as the "industrial monosodium glutamate". However, traditional titanium dioxide production processes have long faced many bottlenecks: the sulfuric acid process produces a large amount of acidic wastewater and waste residue, resulting in high environmental treatment costs; although the chlorination process has less pollution, its core technology has long been monopolized by foreign countries, and it has strict requirements on raw material quality and huge equipment investment. At the same time, downstream industries have increasingly higher requirements for the purity and dispersibility of titanium dioxide, and traditional products can no longer meet the needs of the high-end market.
"Guided by the 'dual carbon' goals, driven by both environmental pressure and market demand, technological innovation is the only way for titanium dioxide enterprises to break through," the R&D team of Shandong Zhongjin Chemical Co., LTD said. Since 2021, the company has established a special R&D team composed of more than 20 doctors and senior engineers, invested nearly 100 million yuan in R&D funds, and focused on the three core goals of "efficiency improvement, cost reduction and environmental protection" to carry out technical research.
Three Major Breakthroughs in Core Technology, Both Performance and Environmental Protection
It is reported that the newly developed "High-Efficiency and Environmentally Friendly Titanium Dioxide Preparation New Technology" has achieved three core breakthroughs: First, it innovatively adopts the "segmented catalytic reaction" process, optimizes the titanium solution hydrolysis reaction conditions, and increases the purity of titanium dioxide products from 98.5% of the traditional process to 99.8%, and the dispersibility index is increased by 30%. Its application performance in high-end automotive coatings, electronic display materials and other fields is far superior to similar products; Second, it has developed a new type of environmentally friendly flux to replace the high-pollution auxiliary materials in the traditional process. Combined with the independently designed "wastewater recycling system", it reduces wastewater discharge by 90% during the production process and realizes 100% comprehensive utilization of waste residue, completely solving the pollution problem of the sulfuric acid process;Third, through the intelligent transformation of equipment and optimization of process parameters, the production cycle is shortened by 20% and the comprehensive energy consumption is reduced by 35%, effectively reducing the product production cost.
The authoritative industry appraisal committee commented: "This technology integrates multiple cutting-edge technologies such as new catalysis, environmental protection materials and intelligent control, and has achieved original breakthroughs in key links such as titanium solution purification and pollutant treatment. The overall technical level has reached the international leading level, providing a replicable technical solution for my country's titanium dioxide industry to transform from 'scale expansion' to 'quality improvement'."
Broad Market Prospects, Promoting Industry Green Transformation
At present, this technology has successfully realized industrial application, and a 50,000-ton annual output high-efficiency and environmentally friendly titanium dioxide production line has been built. According to the company, after the production line is put into operation, the products have obtained orders from many domestic and foreign high-end coating and plastic enterprises. It is expected that the annual sales revenue will increase by 800 million yuan and more than 200 new jobs will be created. At the same time, Shandong Zhongjin Chemical Co., LTD has launched a technology promotion plan, which will help small and medium-sized enterprises in the industry achieve technological upgrading through technology authorization and cooperative production.
The implementation of this titanium dioxide technological innovation achievement not only improves my country's core competitiveness in the global titanium dioxide industry, but also sets a benchmark for the green and low-carbon transformation of the chemical industry. Industry insiders pointed out that with the wide application of such innovative technologies, my country's titanium dioxide industry is expected to break the foreign technological monopoly, gradually occupy a leading position in the global high-end market, and provide solid support for the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry.
In the future, the company stated that it will continue to increase R&D investment, focus on expanding the application of titanium dioxide in new energy, high-end equipment and other fields, and promote the implementation and transformation of more innovative achievements to contribute more to the development of the industry.
