The market demand for tetrachlorethylene is strong, but my country’s production is still at a low level

Tetrachlorethylene is an organic compound with the chemical formula C2Cl4. It appears as a colorless liquid, is toxic, has an ether-like smell, is insoluble in water, and is miscible in most organic solvents such as ethanol, ether, and chloroform. Tetrachlorethylene is volatile, highly permeable, highly stable, non-flammable, resistant to hydrolysis, easy to recycle, and corrosive to metals. It can be used not only as a dry cleaning agent, desiccant, insect repellent, adhesive solvent, and metal degreasing Solvents and fatty extractants are used in dry cleaning, agriculture, metallurgy and other fields. They can also be used in the chemical industry as raw materials for trichloroacetic acid and fluorinated organic compounds.

There are various production methods for tetrachlorethylene, which can be produced by ethylene method, hydrocarbon oxidation method, acetylene method, etc. Among them, the ethylene method is currently the mainstream production method for preparing tetrachlorethylene. According to different production processes, it can be divided into two major production paths: direct chlorination of ethylene and oxychlorination of ethylene. The direct chlorination method of ethylene uses ethylene and chlorine as raw materials, and generates tetrachlorethylene through addition reaction, chlorination reaction, distillation, neutralization, drying and other links; the ethylene oxychlorination method uses ethylene and chlorine as raw materials. A method to generate tetrachlorethylene through addition reaction, catalyst catalysis, oxychlorination reaction, cooling, distillation and other steps. This method can prepare high-purity tetrachlorethylene.

Perchlorethylene is an important type of organic solvent. According to different purity, it can be divided into industrial grade tetrachlorethylene and environmental grade tetrachlorethylene. Among them, industrial-grade tetrachlorethylene is mainly used in three major scenarios: dry cleaning agent, refrigerant, and metal degreasing, and the market demand is relatively stable; environmental-grade tetrachlorethylene is mainly used in water quality and petroleum infrared detection scenarios, with broad application prospects, and market demand is expected to continue increase. At present, the market demand for tetrachlorethylene in my country is strong and the industry has huge development potential.

According to 《 2023-2027 China Perchlorethylene Industry Market Monitoring and Future Development Prospects Research Report》Shows that What does not match the huge market demand is that China’s current production of tetrachlorethylene is relatively low, with an annual output of about 400,000 tons. At the same time, there is a big gap between domestically produced tetrachlorethylene and international products in terms of purity, color, moisture content, etc. Products are mainly concentrated in the middle and low-end markets, mainly industrial-grade tetrachlorethylene, and environmental-grade tetrachlorethylene mainly relies on import.

Industry analysts said that currently there are relatively few large-scale manufacturers of tetrachlorethylene in my country, mainly including Juhua Chemical and Jiuhongxin Materials, Alashan Dakang, Honghe Fine Chemicals, etc.; local environmentally friendly PCE suppliers include Jiangtian Chemical, Xilong Science, etc., which are mainly small-scale manufacturers, and no manufacturers with large-scale mass production capabilities have yet emerged. In the future, local PCE companies will need to accelerate the improvement of their technical level and environmentally friendly product research and development capabilities to promote the continuous improvement of domestic market supply capabilities.