In-depth Analysis of China's Cellulose Ether Industry Market

1. Cellulose ether

Cellulose is the main component of plant cell walls, and it is the most widely distributed and abundant polysaccharide in nature, accounting for more than 50% of the sugar content in the plant kingdom. Among them, the cellulose content of cotton is close to 100%, which is the purest natural source of cellulose. It is one of the most important water-soluble polymers in industry and is currently developing rapidly.

2. Application and function of cellulose ether

Cellulose ether has a reputation as "industrial monosodium glutamate". It has excellent properties such as solution thickening, good water solubility, suspension or latex stability, film-forming properties, water retention, and adhesion. It is also non-toxic and odorless. It is widely used in Building materials, medicine, food, textiles, daily chemicals, oil exploration, mining, papermaking, polymerization, aerospace and many other fields. Cellulose ether has the advantages of wide use, small unit usage, good modification effect, and environmental friendliness. It can significantly improve and optimize product performance in its addition field, which is conducive to improving resource utilization efficiency and product-added value. It is a national economy. An indispensable environmentally friendly additive in various fields.

HPMC for Skimcoat

3. Cellulose ether industry chain

The upstream raw material of cellulose ether is mainly refined cotton. After alkalization, cellulose is obtained, and then propylene oxide and methyl chloride are added for etherification to obtain cellulose ether. Cellulose ethers are divided into non-ionic and ionic types, and downstream applications involve building materials/coatings, medicine, food additives, etc.

4. Capacity situation

After more than ten years of hard work, my country's cellulose ether industry has grown from nothing and has experienced rapid development. Its competitiveness in the same industry around the world has become increasingly stronger, and it has formed a huge industrial scale and localization in the building materials product market. According to statistics, in 2021, my country's cellulose ether production capacity will be 809,000 tons/year, and the capacity utilization rate will be 80%. It is expected that by 2024, my country's cellulose ether production capacity will increase to 925,000 tons/year. The tensile stress is 82%.

5. Downstream Demand Distribution

According to statistics, the domestic cellulose ether downstream building materials account for 33%, the petroleum field accounts for 16%, the food field accounts for 15%, the pharmaceutical field accounts for 8%, and other fields account for 28%.

Binders such as tile adhesives are downstream of cellulose ethers. As a substitute for cement mortar, they have the advantages of high bonding strength and not easy to age and fall off. However, due to the high cost of use, the popularity rate is low. Under the background that the cement mixing mortar process is prohibited, it is expected that the popularization of the use of adhesives such as tile adhesive will bring about an increase in the demand for building materials grade cellulose ethers.

Redispersible Polymer Powder for Putty Mortar

6. Import and export

In terms of import and export value, according to statistics, as of the first half of 2022, my country's cellulose ether import value was US$79 million, a year-on-year decrease of 4.45%, and the export value was 291 million US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 78.18%.

There are many cellulose ether export areas in my country. According to statistics, in 2021, my country will export 12,200 tons of cellulose ether to Russia, accounting for 13.89% of the total export volume, and export 8,500 tons to India, accounting for 9.69%, and export to Turkey, Thailand and Brazil accounted for 6.55%, 6.34% and 5.05% respectively, and exports from other regions accounted for 58.48%.

7. Market development trend of building materials grade cellulose ether

Thanks to the improvement of my country's urbanization level, the building materials industry has developed rapidly, the level of construction mechanization has been continuously improved, and consumers' environmental protection requirements for building materials have become higher and higher, which has driven the demand for non-ionic cellulose ethers in the field of building materials. The "Outline of the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development" proposes to coordinate the promotion of traditional infrastructure and new infrastructure construction, and to create a modern infrastructure system that is complete, efficient, practical, intelligent, green, safe and reliable.

In addition, on February 14, 2020, the twelfth meeting of the Central Committee for Comprehensively Deepening Reform pointed out that "new infrastructure" is the future direction of my country's infrastructure construction. The meeting proposed that "infrastructure is an important support for economic and social development. Guided by synergy and integration, coordinate the development of existing and incremental, traditional and new infrastructure, and create an intensive, efficient, economical, intelligent, green, safe and reliable modern infrastructure system.” The implementation of "new infrastructure" is conducive to the advancement of my country's urbanization in the direction of intelligence and technology, and is conducive to increasing the domestic demand for building materials grade cellulose ether.