International
Plastics markets assure intermediates' growth Global demand for two chemicals—1,4-butanediol and hydrazine—will grow 14% a year into the 1980's, Paris-based group predicts Against the backdrop of the many gloomy predictions for the new year, it's a relief to hear encouraging ones, such as the healthy growth potential that 1,4butanediol and hydrazine appear to have. Worldwide demand for both chemicals is expected to increase by some 14% annually into the 1980's. That's well above the average growth rate expected for the global chemical industry as a whole. This is the conclusion reached in a detailed study just concluded at Paris-based Bureau d'Etudes Industrielles et de Coopération (BEICIP), a subsidiary of Institut Français du Pétrole. ' O u r aim was to determine intermediates most likely to enjoy unusual rates of growth in demand, independent of whether or not the world economy will continue to expand at the rate of the past 10 years," comments Albert Hahn, who headed the project. Recently emerging uses of 1,4-butanediol and hydrazine, he believes, will foster their expanded use. In the case of 1,4-butanediol, demand probably will rise as polybutylene terephthalate captures a sizable share of the market now held by metals and such relatively high-priced engineering plastics as polyacetals, polyamides, polycarbonates, and polysulfones. Hydrazine's growth likely will reflect wider use of derivatives for making foamed plastics. The largest outlet of the 33,000 metric tons of 1,4-butanediol used globally is as a cross-linking agent in elastomeric polyurethane formulations such as those used in footwear. Closely tied to the diol is tetrahydrofuran made from it by acid-catalyzed dehydration. World demand last year amounted to some 43,000 metric tons. The bulk of it went into solvents for polyvinyl chloride systems, inks, magnetic recording tape, coatings, and the like. Polymerized to polytetramethylene glycol, it is used for making polyurethane-based elastomers and fibers, and poromerics. The BEICIP study foresees combined demand for 1,4-butanediol and tetrahydrofuran reaching 200,000 metric tons annually by 1980 from last
year's 80,000-metric-ton level. The share of the market held by the diol itself likely will shift from the present 40% of the total to 50%. This will be due largely to the expected rapid growth of polybutylene terephthalatebased engineering thermoplastics. World demand for this class of polymer, BEICIP predicts, could reach 50,000 metric tons by 1980. That would provide an outlet for 20,000 to 25,000 metric tons of the diol. In the U.S., which currently accounts for the bulk of global production, Celanese, General Electric, and Eastman have a combined annual capacity for making about 9000 metric tons. In Western Europe, Imperial Chemical Industries has a commercial unit at Billingham, England. A number of other major chemical companies including Akzo, Ciba-Geigy, Hoechst, and Dynamit Nobel are in various stages of evaluating the polymer and working on production plans. Combined worldwide capacity for 1,4-butanediol and tetrahydrofuran exceeds 93,000 metric tons per year— about 55,000 metric tons in the U.S., 25,000 metric tons in Western Europe, and 14,000 metric tons in Japan. The two major U.S. makers of the diol are Du Pont and GAF, each capable of producing more than 25,000 metric tons annually by interacting acetylene with formaldehyde, a process pioneered by the late Dr. Walter Reppe of West Germany. Both companies have expansion plans under way. Du Pont is raising annual capacity to 35,000 metric tons and GAF to 70,000 metric tons by 1977. In that year, too, BASF Wyandotte expects to have its 25,000 metricton-per-year plant operating at Geismar, La. The BEICIP study includes a comparison of the economics of the comHahn: recently emerging uses
mercial routes to the diol and tetrahydrofuran. These routes are the Reppe process, Toyo Soda's process involving hydrolysis of 1,4-dichlorobutene, and Mitsubishi's reduction of maleic anhydride to 7-butyrolactone and tetrahydrofuran. Global demand for hydrazine hydrate in 1980, Hahn predicts, may reach 80,000 metric tons. In contrast, consumption last year exceeded 32,000 metric tons. Apart from its use as a constituent in rocket fuel, major commercial outlets include the production of blowing agents for making foamed plastics, agrichemicals, boiler water treatment to prevent corrosion, and pharmaceuticals. Should hydrazine-based fuel cells become commercially viable, the market will grow very rapidly, Hahn points out. But in the near term, he sees the continuing rise in demand for foamed plastics as a major growth stimulus for the chemical. Last year, nearly 9000 metric tons of hydrazine hydrate, about 28% of the total used, went toward making azodicarbonamide (by interaction with urea) and other derivatives. Hahn pegs existing commercial hydrazine hydrate annual capacity at 35,500 metric tons—5500 metric tons in the U.S., 20,000 metric tons in Western Europe, and 10,000 metric tons in Japan. Olin is the largest U.S. producer with a 40000 metric-ton-per-year unit based on the Raschig process. (The company also operates a hydrazine rocket fuel plant for the U.S. government.) The other U.S. producer, Fairmount Chemical, has an annual hydrazine capacity of 1500 metric tons. Soon these companies will be joined by Mobay, which is putting up a 10,000 metric-ton-per-year plant. A development that could do much to boost hydrazine's fortunes is an unusual route to the chemical that France's Pêchiney-Ugine-Kuhlmann unveiled last year (C&EN, Sept. 16, 1974, page 19). It is based on hydrogen peroxide rather than chlorine as the oxidant. In a comparison of the production economics of the existing routes to hydrazine—the traditional Raschig process developed in Germany some 60 years ago, a modification developed by Bayer, the urea oxidation method, and that of PUK—the BEICIP study points up the range over which each one seems to be the most competitive. The comparison shows that above a certain production level the new PUK process appears attractive economically. D Jan. 13, 1975 C&EN
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