Huizheng Information, Anhui Wanwei High-tech Plan 60kt/a VAE Emulsion Project (Phase II) Environmental Impact Assessment for the second time. It is reported that the project (Phase I) was established in 2021, and Wanwei High-tech raised 328 million funds. Using vinyl acetate and ethylene as raw materials, it uses the kettle semi-continuous emulsion polymerization process to produce VAE emulsion and high-end VAE emulsion with special polymerization degree.
The second phase of the project is mainly for the construction of three new VAE production lines, including three sets of polymerization reaction systems and other supporting facilities.
VAE emulsion is the abbreviation of vinyl acetate - ethylene copolymer emulsion. It is a polymer emulsion made of vinyl acetate and vinyl monomer as basic raw materials and copolymerized with other auxiliary materials through emulsion polymerization. It has the advantages of permanent softness, water resistance, weather resistance, low temperature resistance, fast bonding speed, high bonding strength, safe and non-toxic use, and is widely used in adhesives, external wall insulation, building waterproofing, coatings, composite packaging materials, construction cement mortar modification, non-woven fabric manufacturing, paper coating, and general bonding of various polar and non-polar materials. Among them, adhesives are the most widely used fields of VAE emulsion and the largest market demand field.
From the perspective of the industrial chain, vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) is the main raw material of VAE; from the perspective of product type, VAE emulsion can be divided into versatile VAE emulsion, waterproof VAE emulsion; in terms of sub-application fields, our country VAE emulsion industry covers the architectural coating industry and coatings, adhesives, other fields.
VAE emulsions were first industrialized by Air Products in the mid-1960s, and then DuPont, Wacker and other companies also produced similar products. Japan in Asia was the first to introduce VAE emulsion production technology, and Taiwan Dalian Chemical Co., Ltd. built the first VAE production line in 1984; Beijing Organic Chemical Plant and Sichuan Vinylon Plant imported production technology and key equipment with an annual output of 15,000 tons of VAE from Reichold Company in the United States.
With the rapid development of the domestic VAE emulsion market, many companies are accelerating their layout in this field and expanding their production capacity to seize market share. The main producers of the domestic VAE emulsion market include Chuanwei Chemical, Wanwei Gaoxin, Oriental Yuhong, Celanese, Wacker, Dalian Chemical, etc.
Our country is a big country in the use of VAE emulsions, and it is also the fastest growing market. With the rapid development of the domestic economy, especially the country's emphasis on building energy conservation and environmental protection, the demand for VAE emulsions in the construction industry has grown rapidly, which has promoted the rapid expansion of domestic production capacity. In 2016, our country's VAE production capacity has exceeded 700,000 tons. With Oriental Yuhong and Chuanwei Chemical VAE emulsions put into production, it is expected that our country's VAE emulsion production capacity will exceed 1.20 million tons in 2023.
At present, the consumption of VAE emulsion in our country is about 50-600,000 tons/year, which is mainly used in the fields of adhesives, external wall insulation, coatings, textiles, paper processing and so on. Among them, adhesives/external wall insulation and coatings are the main application fields of VAE emulsion, and these three fields together account for nearly 80% of the entire VAE emulsion consumption field. In recent years, with the continuous improvement of the domestic construction industry and the continuous development of adhesive application fields, the market demand for adhesives and architectural coatings continues to increase, which in turn drives the continuous growth and scale of VAE emulsion demand.
According to public data, the total size of the global VAE emulsion market will reach 25.35 billion yuan (RMB) in 2021, and the size of the Chinese VAE emulsion market will reach 8.926 billion yuan (RMB); the global VAE emulsion market revenue will reach 26.189 billion yuan (RMB) in 2022, and the size of the Chinese VAE emulsion market will reach 9.221 billion yuan, accounting for about 35% of the total share of the global VAE emulsion market.
