The government promotes "oil to water" to help the development of coating industry

It is understood that volatile organic compounds (VOC) are one of the main contributors to the air pollution sources of general concern, and coatings and their organic solvents, as one of the main emission sources of VOC, have inevitably become the target of public criticism. Therefore, with the "paint ban" trend becoming more and more intense, the voice of "oil to water" in the coating industry is also rising day by day.

Since July 2015, Shenzhen has taken the first step of "banning paint" in China and banned paint products completely.

At the end of last year, Huizhou followed suit. In its 13th five year plan for energy conservation and emission reduction in Huizhou (Draft for comments), Huizhou proposed to prohibit the use of solvent based coatings and adhesives in the construction industry.

Recently, a number of cities have issued relevant policies to restrict the use of paint products in the fields of rail transit, containers, auto parts and so on.

VOC emission of waterborne coatings can be reduced by 60%

In recent years, in consideration of environmental protection and other factors, the state and local governments have issued policies to promote the treatment of volatile organic compounds pollution, improve VOC restriction standards for coatings and other products, and encourage the promotion and use of water-based coatings. The data show that the VOC emission of water-based coatings can be reduced by 60% - 70% compared with that of oil-based coatings.

Why are waterborne coatings environmentally friendly? According to the analysis of Yang Naihong, head of the technical committee of the water-based platform, because the water-based coating uses water as the dispersion medium, generally speaking, the water-based coating is mixed with water. What the water-based coating volatilizes in the spraying and drying process is water, and its VOC emission is very small. There are a lot of diluents in the process of painting and drying, that is, the organic solvent will volatilize and produce a lot of VOC.

"The enhancement of consumers' awareness of environmental protection makes waterborne coatings more attractive to the market." According to Li Xushan, marketing director of zhanchen coating group, a "water-based coating furniture consumer survey" shows that when consumers buy furniture, they are most concerned about the health and environmental protection performance of furniture. Therefore, "water paint" is more favored by consumers than "paint". Moreover, consumers are willing to "pay" for environmental protection and can accept a certain price gap.

China has become a major paint producer and consumer in the world, but it lags far behind European and American countries in promoting the popularization of environmentally friendly coatings. Relevant statistics show that the average penetration rate of environmental protection coatings in Europe has reached 80% - 90%, while the penetration rate of environmental protection coatings in China's first tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai is less than 25%. It can be seen that there is still a huge market potential for more environmentally friendly waterborne coatings.

Tangible hand to promote "oil to water"

As early as September 2013, the State Council issued the action plan for the prevention and control of air pollution, which proposed to promote cleaner production, improve VOC restriction standards for coatings, inks, adhesives and other products, promote the use of water-based coatings and inks, and encourage the use of organic solvents with low toxicity and low VOC content, setting off a nationwide campaign for air pollution control.

Article 43 of the law on the prevention and control of air pollution, which was implemented in 2016, stipulates that industrial coatings should use coatings with low volatile organic matter content.

Frequent favorable policies make the prospect of waterborne coatings very promising. According to the estimation of the analysis organization, the VOC governance market will usher in explosive growth during the 13th Five Year Plan period, and the market scale is expected to exceed 150 billion yuan.

Pei Zhonghua, President of water platform (China), believes that compared with sewage regulation, VOC regulation is more difficult and complex. Therefore, the most effective way in this field is to take drastic measures. Accelerating the "oil to water" is to reduce VOC emissions from the source.

According to Gu Yan, the pollution control technology of VOC includes source control and end treatment. In the long run, enterprises can reduce emissions at the source once and for all, which is more cost-effective than being repeatedly punished for long-term non-compliance. "

However, the realization of "oil to water" is far from as simple as expected. In the production process, the transformation of production lines and the increase of production costs have deterred some small enterprises without technical and economic strength. After "oil to water", a series of follow-up construction services such as coating equipment and construction habits should be changed, which is bound to increase the transformation cost of enterprises.

"The government is using increasingly stringent environmental protection policies to force the transformation and development of traditional coating enterprises." Gu Yan said that from the domestic practice in recent years, the biggest driving force of "oil to water" comes from the promotion of the government.

According to combing, at present, more than 20 cities have begun to launch relevant policies. For example, Shanghai pollution prevention and control plan and Suzhou volatile organic compound pollution control plan for key industries are forcing coating enterprises to transform through the "visible hands" of government regulation.

Opportunities in industry dilemma

"Waterborne coatings have gained relatively mature experience in the fields of containers, engineering machinery, rail transit, auto parts and so on." According to Gu Yan, water-based coatings have entered China's market for more than ten years. At present, their technologies and performance have been greatly improved compared with the past. They can approach the performance of traditional coatings and become a new alternative technology.

Li Xushan said that the development of water-based coatings is a great benefit to the environment. It can also lower the price of foreign water-based paint brands in the current market and benefit domestic consumers. However, to replace oil-based coatings with water-based coatings, we not only need to transform the original coating production line, but also seek a breakthrough in the process of popularization and application.

"Mechanized coating technology and drying technology are difficult problems that need to be solved jointly by domestic enterprises. At the same time, through automatic equipment, improve the recovery rate to reduce costs." Li Xushan expressed the hope that the government would increase financial subsidies for water-based and other environmental protection coatings to further mobilize the enthusiasm of enterprises for transformation.

As the key object of VOC governance in China, the container industry has been one step ahead and began to promote water-based coatings as early as a few years ago. However, due to the lack of unified standards and operating specifications in the industry and the practical factors that the cost is higher than that of solvent based coatings, it has fallen into the dilemma of "who protects the environment and who loses". In order to solve this dilemma, recently, China's container industry has defined the technical route for the unified promotion and application of waterborne coatings in the whole industry; The product standards, process specifications, quality inspection standards and VOC emission accounting standards of container waterborne coatings have been formulated, and the dilemma of the development of container waterborne coatings has been solved by standardized means.

It is understood that at present, the standard system of water-based coatings has been gradually established, including more than 10 standards, such as Hg / t4570-2013 water-based coatings for automobiles, Hg / t5058-2016 water-based damping coatings for rail transit vehicles, and GB / t23999-2009 water-based Wood Coatings for interior decoration.

Reprinted from China coating equipment network