On February 13, Covestro said it is advancing the development of a bio-based aniline mass production process. Recently, the company's world's first pure plant-based aniline pilot plant in Leverkusen, Germany, was put into operation. The new plant will initially produce large quantities of bioaniline in order to further develop new production techniques and convert them to an industrial scale. Bio-based aniline research will also continue to receive funding from the German government. The German Ministry of Food and Agriculture is funding a follow-up project carried out by Covestro and its partners, which was launched in March 2022 and will run until 2025
Aniline is an important organic chemical raw material, widely used in fuel, medicine, explosives, spices, rubber vulcanization accelerator, medicine and other industries, especially as the main raw material of polyurethane products MDI raw material. In addition, aniline can also be used as solvents and other chemical raw materials, the use is very wide.
In 2023, although the aniline industry is still in the "leader" in the upstream and downstream of the benzene chain, with the resumption of the previous shutdown device, the production of new devices and the sharp decline in exports, the development of the industry has also encountered new problems, and the future development will usher in new challenges. Exports decreased by about 67.9% year on year; Prices fell 3.87% year-on-year; Profits rose 29 per cent year on year.
Unlike other downstream pure benzene, aniline production capacity has basically changed little since 2015, except for the addition of 460,000 tons of equipment in 2021, the production capacity in other years has not changed or reduced, and Wanhua Chemical has added a 360,000 tons of aniline equipment in Fujian in 2023.
In 2023, the total domestic aniline production capacity will reach 4.495 million tons/year, an increase of 385,000 tons/year over the previous year, an increase of 9.37%. The new increase can resume work after relocation of Fujian Wanhua 360,000 tons/year and Chongqing Changfeng 25,000 tons/year aniline plant. In addition, a 180,000 tons of aniline plant in Connell restarted after 17 months of parking, so the annual domestic device capacity utilization rate of 3.44 percentage points fell, but from the actual production point of view, roughly estimated that the total domestic aniline production in 2023, 3,084,600 tons per month, an increase of 4.15%. Few new installations will be added in the next few years, and it is expected that the aniline production capacity and output will not change much, and will continue to maintain the current value.
The downstream consumption concentration of aniline is high, 77% of aniline is used to produce MDI, 18% will be used to produce rubber additives, 4% is used to prepare dyes and pharmaceutical intermediates, and the remaining 1% is used to produce gasoline additives. According to the development of downstream products, the domestic aniline consumption structure will not change significantly in the future, and MDI is still the largest proportion of the downstream, so the research process needs to focus on the future changes of the MDI industry.
From the perspective of downstream consumption changes, in 2023, the domestic demand for aniline is about 3.11 million tons, an increase of 18%. Due to the new production capacity of downstream MDI this year, and the consumption of aniline in the MDI field in 2023 accounted for about 79.3% of the total domestic demand for aniline, so the main growth area of domestic aniline demand this year is also concentrated in the MDI field, rather than the MDI industry, rubber auxiliaries and cyclohexylamine have different increases, but the proportion of domestic aniline consumption is still relatively low.
At present, aniline is mainly produced by catalytic hydrogenation of nitrobenzene, which is the hydrogenation production of nitric acid, hydrogen and pure benzene as raw materials. It is applied downstream in MDI, rubber auxiliaries, dyes and pharmaceutical intermediates, gasoline additives and other fields. Pure benzene in refining and chemical production enterprises can not be blended with oil products, which promotes the extension and utilization of the downstream industrial chain of pure benzene, and has become the focus of the chemical research and development industry.
There are three main types of aniline production processes: nitrobenzene catalytic hydrogenation method, phenol ammonification method and nitrobenzene iron powder reduction method. A large amount of wastewater will be produced in the production process of nitrobenzene iron powder reduction method. The production of phenol ammonification method requires large equipment and relatively high cost, so 90% of aniline in the world is produced by nitrobenzene catalytic hydrogenation method. Starting from the raw material of pure benzene, adding nitric acid for nitration reaction to produce nitrobenzene, nitrobenzene can be catalytic hydrogenated to prepare aniline. In general, to prepare 1 ton of aniline, 0.86 tons of pure benzene and 0.74 tons of nitric acid need to be consumed, and the fixed processing cost per ton is about 700 yuan.
From the process point of view, the main route of aniline is nitrification and hydrogenation of petrochemical raw materials, and Covestro bio-based aniline production process mainly includes two steps:
1. The conversion of industrial sugars extracted from plants into intermediate products through customized microbial fermentation;
2. Chemical catalysis of intermediate products to produce 100% plant-based aniline.
As early as 2021, Covestro announced the launch of ISCC certified biobased MDI and Biobased TDI products. It signed with Huafeng Group its first ISCC PLUS certified MDI commercial order in Asia Pacific for a low carbon footprint based on a mass balance approach with a partial share of biomass feedstock.
Recently, BASF announced on its website that its plant in Yeosu, South Korea, successfully produced the first biomass balanced (BMB) methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI).
There are eight major MDI manufacturers in the world, and the top three manufacturers by capacity are Wanhua Chemical, BASF and Covestro, which together account for more than 60% of the world's total production capacity. Biobased MDI is the chemical giant's option to provide circular or low product carbon footprint for all of its major value chains as the primary upstream raw material for biobased polyurethanes.
The development of biobased MDI reduces carbon emissions at the source of the material, and the use of renewable raw materials in the production system helps to improve the carbon footprint of customers' products along the value chain compared to conventional MDI based on traditional raw materials.
