Does Chlorination Process Suitable for China?

Over 98 percent of Chinese manufacturers produce titanium dioxide by sulfuric acid method, which causes considerable quantities of liquid and solid wastes. Besides, this producing method involves nearly 20 process steps, each of which must be strictly controlled to produce high-quality titanium dioxide products and meet the optimal properties of pigment.

Chlorination process, as a more environment-friendly alternative, is getting welcomed by Chinese manufacturers in recent years.

Using petroleum coke, titanium slag and chlorine as main materials, this newly-developed producing method generates less pollution and needs more simple steps.

However, chlorination process only apply to rutile titanium dioxide while sulfuric acid method can produce both rutile and anatase ones. The more important thing is chlorination process entails massive funds, super-premium raw materials and special equipment, which indicates high production costs and difficult R&D technologies.

Currently, more than half of titanium dioxide products in the world are based on chlorination process, but 80 percent of them come from the four global giants (i.e. DuPont, Tronox and Huntsman from the U.S. and Cristal Global from Saudi Arabia).

Chinese manufacturers have made attempts on small-scale production by chlorination process, but it remains unknown whether the advanced technology applies to China in mass production, or whether it is more suitable than the traditional sulfuric acid method considering China''s actual conditions.

Chinese government has never give up the development of chlorination process production lines. In 2005, Production through chlorination process, as a possible solution to chemical pollution, has already been listed on the preferential policies. But it is in recent years that chlorination process gets more attention since some leading titanium dioxide manufacturers are involved in environmental pollution scandal. Actually, due to the low selling prices and high waste treatment costs, most domestic manufacturers have to let go the wastes.

Guided by eco-economy policies, to convert current economic growth pattern into a sustainable way is a general trend in China, and development focus on clean production is one of the key projects. For Chinese manufacturers, chlorination process production has not shown its high cost-performance ratio yet, but it is already on the way of replacing sulfuric acid method as the main producing way of titanium dioxide.