Environmentally-friendly inorganic pigment development pushed to the front

A few years ago, the United States and Thailand toy recall incident that caused a sensation in the world was precisely because of lead paint found in toys, which violated relevant foreign laws and regulations. In recent days, blood lead exceeded standards and lead pollution incidents have become more frequent in the newspapers. Especially after 228 children in Anhui Province were detected in early this year for excessive blood lead exposure, heavy metal pollution once again touched the public’s nerves and triggered the industry’s environmental protection pigments. Development and application concerns.

In a survey interview, the reporter learned that, both in terms of national environmental protection laws and regulations and market demands, improving the environmental protection and safety level of inorganic pigments and achieving lead-free has been widely recognized by companies in the industry, but currently domestic inorganic pigment manufacturers are A breakthrough in the field is rare but downstream users are still in a state of hope.

According to Yue Wangkun, secretary general of the China Coatings Industry Association, last year China’s paint production is expected to reach 10 million tons, which is the largest in the world, but high-end products still need to be imported, and the low environmental protection level of pigments is an important reason. "The domestically produced new environmentally-friendly pigments are still unable to meet the growing needs of domestic paint companies." Yue Wang-kun stressed.

Qiao Hui, secretary general of the Masterbatch Specialty Committee of the China Dyestuff Industry Association, also stated that currently only two companies capable of producing environmentally friendly pigments for masterbatches are far from meeting the needs of many masterbatch companies.

Domestic products cannot meet the needs of downstream users. They can only rely on imports and are bound to be controlled by others. Dr. Li Lifeng of Shanghai Yishilong New Material Technology Co., Ltd. said: “Environment-friendly pigments are high-grade products. The company has been importing foreign pigments. Once a foreign supplier suddenly lost stock, the reason is that its products must be supplied to the military industry, and we are very helpless. Once again, we want to import high-end products from abroad, but this category is not available in the country's imported product catalog.

At present, under the strict environmental protection laws and regulations, many countries have become popular, non-toxic, environmentally friendly color-mixed inorganic pigments (also known as MMO pigments) that can replace traditional lead and cadmium pigments. Many countries stipulate that any appliance that is in constant contact with the human body cannot be coated with paint containing lead pigments. The U.S. government even stipulates that any vehicle is not allowed to be coated with paint containing lead pigments; some electronic and electrical products that are colored by the masterbatch Plastic and toy products must also be lead-free pigments. In this case, titanium nickel yellow (green phase yellow) and titanium chromium brown (red phase yellow) become the preferred substitutes for traditional chrome yellow and molybdenum red.

According to reports, although these pigments contain some metals that are considered to be toxic, such as chromium, barium, nickel, etc., but because the product is calcined at a high temperature above 1000°C, the resulting heterogeneous oxides are very inert and the body's stomach acid is fundamental. Can not be dissolved, so even into the gastrointestinal tract, it is harmless to the human body; after contact with the human body, but also safe, in line with food requirements and toys and other safety requirements. In addition, compared with organic pigments, MMO pigments have excellent weathering resistance and excellent heat resistance, light resistance, acid and alkali resistance, chemical resistance, strong hiding power, and easy dispersion, among all known pigments, including Organic pigments, inorganic pigments, etc., MMO pigments are also the most resistant; due to the solid phase production, coupled with reasonable choice of raw materials, there is no waste gas, waste water, waste residue, production process environmental protection; with the characteristics of infrared reflection, plus Excellent weather resistance, UV resistance, anti-aging, so it is suitable for use in the anti-IR environment-friendly thermal insulation coating, through the infrared reflective coating to achieve the purpose of insulation and cooling energy conservation.

The good news is that China is also actively developing environmentally friendly inorganic pigments, which has brought hope to the downstream industry. On January 16th, the largest environmental-friendly color-mixed phase inorganic pigment project in China, Hunan Jufa Technology Co., Ltd. broke ground with an annual output of 30,000 tons of low-carbon environment-friendly color mixed-phase inorganic pigment new material project. This move was considered by the industry to be domestically produced. Lead-free ice-breaking inorganic pigments. Jufa Technology will officially launch its MMO pigment A type product at the international leading level recently. The performance of the product will reach or even exceed that of similar foreign products, and the price will be much lower.

According to Ouyang Deli, chairman of the company, these products have been tested by SGS in full compliance with the EU RoHS standards, EN71-3 standards, the United States ASTM F963 standards and Japan SONY standards, at the same time, passed the FDA test and 1000 hours is equivalent to 20 years of resistance Aging experiments can be applied to areas with high environmental performance requirements, such as food packaging, food containers, children's toys, and tableware.

During the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period, the country will implement the total control of heavy metals and other characteristic pollutants in some regions. Some experts told reporters that with the increasingly stringent national environmental regulations and the increasing demand for environmentally friendly inorganic pigments in downstream areas, the development, production, and application of environmentally friendly inorganic pigments during the “12th Five-Year Plan” period will surely make greater progress.