Asphalt emulsifiers are widely used and the market size continues to expand

Asphalt emulsifier refers to a surfactant used for asphalt emulsification and is one of the subcategories of asphalt additives. Adding a small amount of asphalt emulsifier to asphalt can significantly reduce the water surface tension and asphalt free energy, making the emulsion more uniform and stable, thereby achieving the purpose of forming an oil-in-water finished emulsified asphalt emulsion. Emulsified asphalt does not require heating and can be sprayed, paved and poured at room temperature, and can directly act on the surface and base layers of pavements of various structures.

According to the “China Asphalt Emulsifier Industry Market Monitoring and Future Development Prospects Research Report 2022-2026” released by the Industrial Research Center , Asphalt emulsifiers are classified in various ways. According to different ion types, they can be divided into anionic emulsifiers, cationic emulsifiers, zwitterionic emulsifiers and nonionic emulsifiers; according to different forms of finished products, they can be divided into water-in-oil types. Emulsifiers and oil-in-water emulsifiers; according to different splitting speeds, they can be divided into fast-breaking, medium-breaking and slow-breaking emulsifiers.

Among them, cationic asphalt emulsifier has the advantages of fast pavement forming speed, low rain loss, low water quality requirements, strong adaptability to cold mix and cold paving, and high output of high-concentration emulsified asphalt. It is currently the mainstream product in the domestic asphalt emulsifier market. The main categories of cationic asphalt emulsifiers include quaternary ammonium salts, propylene diamines, alkyl diamines, imidazoline emulsifiers, etc.

Asphalt emulsifiers are mainly used together with asphalt in road upgrading and maintenance, construction engineering leakage prevention, anti-seepage, moisture-proofing, expanded perlite thermal insulation materials, metal and non-metal material anti-corrosion, agricultural soil improvement and other scenarios. Asphalt is an indispensable engineering pavement material in my country’s construction field. Driven by the continued growth of application market demand, my country’s apparent consumption of petroleum asphalt has reached 59.617 million tons in 2021. As a result, as the domestic asphalt market consumption continues to increase, the domestic asphalt emulsifier market size will reach 450 million yuan in 2021.

There are many asphalt emulsifier manufacturers in the world, and the market competition is fierce. Among them, leading companies mainly include Nouryon, Arkema, Dow Chemical, Evonik Chemical, Kao Corporation, Ingevity Corporation, Petrochem Specialties, etc. Major asphalt emulsifier companies in my country include Zhaoming Technology, Dalian Oleochemicals, Boyue New Materials, Tianhe Jiaye, etc. At present, most of my country’s asphalt emulsifier companies are small and medium-sized enterprises with small scale and low technical level. The industry concentration is low, and the market competitiveness of such companies is still relatively weak. They are at a disadvantage in the global market competition. In the future, local The company still has huge room for growth.

Industry analysts personnel said that asphalt is an important type of pavement material and is used in housing construction, airport construction, bridge construction, and road paving. It is widely used in infrastructure construction and maintenance fields. As a key additive to improve the performance of asphalt and asphalt products, the market size of asphalt emulsifiers is continuously expanding driven by the rapid development of the domestic asphalt industry. It is expected that by 2025, the domestic asphalt emulsifier market size will grow to 580 million yuan. In the future, as the technical level of local enterprises continues to improve and their comprehensive strength continues to strengthen, the domestic asphalt emulsifier market is expected to have a number of leading companies with strong technological and brand advantages, which will further promote the continuous improvement of industry concentration.