The tetrachlorosilane industry will develop well in 2021, and optical fiber preform is an important downstream market

Tetrachlorosilane, also known as silicon tetrachloride, has the chemical formula SiCl4. The appearance of general purity tetrachlorosilane is a slightly yellow or light yellow liquid, while the appearance of high-purity tetrachlorosilane is a colorless and transparent liquid with a pungent odor, toxicity, and corrosiveness, and is soluble in ether, benzene, chloroform, and tetrachlorosilane. Chlorinated carbon, petroleum ether and other organic solvents. Tetrachlorosilane is volatile and deliquescent. It can be hydrolyzed into hydrogen chloride in humid air, which can corrode many metals. It will react violently with water and alcohols. It can decompose when heated, and the decomposition product is corrosive hydrogen chloride.

In industry, silicon powder and hydrogen chloride are generally used as raw materials to produce tetrachlorosilane. Under certain temperature and pressure conditions, dry silicon powder is placed in a boiling furnace and reacts with dry hydrogen chloride to produce tetrachlorosilane and trichlorosilane at the same time. After separation, tetrachlorosilane is obtained. This method is technically mature, highly economical and suitable for industrial production. Trichlorosilane can be produced from tetrachlorosilane through a hydrogenation reaction. Trichlorosilane can undergo a reduction reaction at high temperatures to form tetrachlorosilane, and the two can be converted into each other.

Tetrachlorosilane has a wide range of downstream uses. It can be used to extract high-purity silicon, high-purity silica, optical fiber preforms, quartz fibers, etc.; it can be used as epitaxial gas, etching gas, chemical vapor deposition gas, etc.; it can be used to prepare silicate, Silicone oil, silicone resin, silicone rubber and other organic silicon compounds; can produce smoke screen agents, release agents, etc.; can produce corrosion-resistant ferrosilicon, etc. Among them, optical fiber preform is an important downstream market for tetrachlorosilane. As the scale of my country’s optical communications industry continues to expand, the demand for tetrachlorosilane in the Chinese market continues to rise.

According to the “Tetrafluorosilane Industry In-depth Market Research and Investment Strategy Suggestions Report 2021-2025” released by the Industrial Research Center, it is expected that By 2021, the global demand for optical fibers will reach more than 600 million core kilometers, and the demand for optical fiber preforms will reach about 24,000 tons, bringing broad development space to the tetrachlorosilane industry. my country’s optical fiber coverage continues to improve, especially with the rapid development of big data, artificial intelligence, 5G and other industries, the demand for optical fiber continues to increase, driving the growth of the optical fiber preform market. Against this background, it is expected that my country’s demand for high-purity tetrachlorosilane for optical fibers will reach about 86,000 tons in 2021.

In 2021, my country’s photovoltaic industry is booming, and polysilicon production capacity has increased accordingly, driving the demand for trichlorosilane to rise rapidly, and the production of tetrachlorosilane to increase accordingly. At the same time, the market supply of silicon powder, the raw material for production, is tight and prices are rising, which has provided strong support to the price of tetrachlorosilane. Furthermore, the downstream optical fiber preform industry is developing steadily, the operating rates of fumed silica, functional silane and other industries have increased, and the demand for tetrachlorosilane has increased. Under the influence of multiple factors, my country’s tetrachlorosilane industry will develop well in 2021, and prices will be at a relatively high level overall.

Industry analysts said that my country’s main tetrachlorosilane production companies include Sanfu Co., Ltd., Xin’an Co., Ltd., Chenguang New Materials, and Hongbai New Materials , Luoyang China Silicon, Henan Shangyu, Ningxia Futai, etc. High-purity tetrachlorosilane for optical fiber preforms has high requirements on product purity and impurity content. The quality of high-purity tetrachlorosilane directly affects the quality of optical fibers, and its technical barriers are high. Among my country’s tetrachlorosilane production companies, the number of companies with high-purity product production capabilities is small, the industry structure is unreasonable, and there is still much room for improvement in the future.