Market analysis of polyacrylate thickener in China Coatings Industry

    It is suggested that polyacrylate thickener is a kind of new functional polymer material developed rapidly in recent years. It is mainly used to improve the viscosity or consistency of products, with small dosage, obvious thickening and application
     Polyacrylate thickener is a new type of functional polymer material which has been developed rapidly in recent years. It is mainly used to improve the viscosity or consistency of products. It has the characteristics of small dosage, obvious thickening and easy to use. It is widely used in coating, pharmaceutical, printing and dyeing, cosmetics, food additives, oil extraction, papermaking, leather processing and other industries. China's coating industry is nearly 10% In recent years, the rapid development of coatings market is to "health, environmental protection, green" direction. Water based coatings are the main force in the whole coating market. According to the report "analysis of economic operation and future trend of China's coatings industry in 2013", the output of China's coatings increased from 2.98 million tons in 2004 to 13.035 million tons in 2013, an increase of 4.37 times. Under the influence of the macro market and industrial environment of the whole coatings, the civil coatings, industrial coatings and water-borne coatings showed a growth trend in 2013. In recent years, the average annual growth rate of water-borne coatings in China is about 15%, and the demand for raw materials is also growing. The average annual growth rate of the amount and sales volume of acrylic thickeners for waterborne coatings is about 15%.
 
The industry of Polyacrylic Acid Thickener for water-borne coatings started late in China, but the dosage is large and the increment is larger. Although there is no report on the output, dosage, output value and growth rate, the amount of Polyacrylic Acid Thickener for coatings is about 5kg / T, and 55% of the coatings in China are waterborne coatings. Therefore, the amount of acrylic thickeners for waterborne coatings in 2013 is about 35000 tons. "In 2013, the sales of polyacrylic acid thickener of Handan Ruida latex Technology Co., Ltd. reached RMB 40 million," said Cheng Xingjie, an interview with Huicong coating raw material website.
 
Thickener, I believe you are not unfamiliar with this name. The first thing you think of in your mind is that "food" contains it, and other aspects are not clear. According to general assembly, "thickening agent, as a rheological aid, is widely used in food, coating, adhesives, cosmetics, detergents, printing and dyeing, rubber, medicine and other fields. In addition to considering the fluidity, transparency, consistency, gelation and suspended particle ability of the product, we should also pay attention to choosing less dosage and thickening effect. Ristar is a company mainly engaged in R & D and production of thickener, mainly used in coating, printing and dyeing, oil extraction, mineral processing, papermaking, leather processing and other industries. At present, the amount of thickener in the coating accounts for about 0.8%, and the annual consumption of the coating market reaches 57000 tons. At present, thickeners used in coatings can be divided into four categories: acrylate thickener, alkali swelling thickener, Pu thickener and cellulose thickener. Polyacrylate thickener with the largest consumption in the market can be divided into alkali swelling type and association type
 
"At present, most synthetic thickeners in the world are acrylate copolymers, which have excellent performance and remarkable effect. According to the requirements of environmental protection and safety, emulsion polymerization is often used to synthesize acrylate thickeners. Cheng Xingjie stressed.
 
Let's take a closer look at thickeners:
 
Polyacrylic acid alkali swelling thickener
 
It has been more than 60 years since carbomer934 was introduced into the market by coodrich company in 1953. In the world, emulsion polymerization and inverse emulsion polymerization are used to prepare liquid emulsion or powder products. Because polyacrylic acid thickeners often contain carboxyl groups in the molecular structure, and for polymer emulsion, the introduction of carboxyl groups can give various properties of polymer emulsion, improve coating adhesion to substrates, etc., and have thickening effect on acrylic acid thickeners, and can give various performances of milk liquid. Therefore, many scholars at home and abroad have studied the mechanism of emulsion thickening. As early as 1959, D.B.Fordyce studied the alkali thickening of methacrylic acid acrylate methacrylate emulsion copolymerization system. Muroi and Verbruggef studied the alkali thickening of emulsion copolymerization system of ethyl acrylate acrylic acid and methyl methacrylate ethyl acrylate methacrylic acid, respectively. In 2004, Arnaud synthesized a series of amphiphilic polymers based on hydrophobic modification of N, N- two methacrylamide and acrylic acid, and found that these polymers showed obvious reversible shear induced gel phenomenon in aqueous solution. Some domestic scholars have studied the synthesis and thickening effect of thickener. The results show that the special properties of monomers used in polymerization, the ratio of different monomers and the synthesis process are the main factors affecting the properties of thickeners.
 
Generally speaking, there are two thickening mechanisms of polyacrylic acid thickeners: alkali neutralization thickening (also known as alkali swelling thickening, ASE) and associative thickening (hase), both of which belong to anionic thickeners. Non associative ASE is polyacrylic acid alkali swelling emulsion. These thickeners are mainly ASE-60 of DOW company and R-7260 of Handan City Star latex Technology Co., Ltd. Alkali neutralization thickening is to neutralize the carboxylic acid of acid polyacrylic acid thickener with alkali, so that its molecules are ionized and dissolved in water, so that the molecules stretch and open to form a network structure to achieve thickening effect.
 
Associative HASE is hydrophobically modified polyacrylic acid swelling emulsion, such as Nopco SN636 and DOW TT.