The main application areas of ethanolamine

Ethanolamine is a generic term for monoethanolamine (MEA), diethanolamine (DEA), and triethanolamine (TEA). As one of the important derivatives of ethylene oxide, it is an important fine organic chemical raw material. It is the most practical product of amino alcohol. It is called “industrial MSG” and its output accounts for 90% of the total output of amino alcohol. 95%. The ethanolamine molecule has a nitrogen atom and a hydroxyl group, so it has both the chemical properties of an amine and an alcohol. Ethanolamine is also an important organic intermediate. Its products are widely used in cement building materials industry, washing and chemical industry, textile chemicals, gas purifiers, petroleum additives, leather softeners, lubricating oil anticorrosives, polyurethanes, pharmaceuticals, rubber processing, Textile auxiliaries, chemical weapons, etc. Hubei Xianyu Chemical Co., Ltd. is one of the largest ethanolamine producers in China. Through market research in recent years, the main consumption areas of ethanolamine in China are concentrated in the following industries.

(1) Cement and building materials industry

Triethanolamine is an important fine chemical product and a commonly used raw material for cement grinding aids and concrete admixture manufacturers.

Triethanolamine (TEA) can form a water-soluble chelate with cations in cement hydration system, and forms many melting points on the surface of cement particles, which increases the dissolution rate of C3A and C4AF, resulting in faster reaction with gypsum. The increased amount of calcium sulphoaluminate is beneficial for coagulation and compaction, thereby increasing early strength. At the same time, due to the formation of unstable complexes in the hydration process of cement, the degree of supersaturation of Ca(OH)2 is increased, which can effectively prevent the formation of loose crystalline products in the early stage of C3A hydration, thereby improving the compactness of cement stone and strength. Because of this, triethanolamine is widely used in concrete admixtures such as concrete early strength agents, early strength water reducers, and alkali-free liquid cement accelerators. Since the alcohol amines have a significant effect of promoting coagulation enhancement, they are generally not used as a quick-setting admixture, and are always combined with an inorganic quick-setting component to synthesize a quick-setting admixture. Studies have shown that when producing alkali-free liquid cement quick-setting admixture, the adaptability of diethanolamine is better than that of triethanolamine, which can greatly improve the early strength of the accelerator cement paste.

At the same time, triethanolamine is a kind of polar compound with good grinding aid. It is widely used as a cement grinding aid. It is the main grinding aid of liquid and powder grinding aids in domestic grinding and enhanced grinding. . In recent years, some universities and research institutes in China, and even some grinding aid companies, have begun to develop small and medium molecular synthetic grinding aids and polymer synthetic grinding aids. The initial starting point is not because of the technical problems of triethanolamine itself, but mainly The price of triethanolamine is high and the fluctuation is large, which seriously restricts the consideration of the product cost of the grinding aid. Of course, with the grinding aid grinding mechanism, technical performance, especially the impact of the cement using the grinding aid on the work performance of the concrete, comprehensively improve the quality level and multi-functionality of the cement grinding aid, so that the small and medium The development of molecular synthetic grinding aids and polymer synthetic grinding aids is prominent, but from the perspective of various aspects, even if there are many so-called "alternatives" in the new, at least the recent stage of triethanolamine is still a grinding aid. An important grinding aid component that cannot be completely replaced in the main raw materials.

(2) Washing daily chemical industry

Surfactant: Ethanolamine can be used directly as a surfactant in detergent and detergent formulations. It can also be used as a raw material to produce a variety of surfactants. The most important derivative product is the reaction of diethanolamine with fatty acids (such as lauric acid, coconut acid) to form alkanolamides (alias detergent -6501), and the reaction of triethanolamine with dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid to form dodecane. Benzosulfonyl triethanolamine. Surfactants are used in many fields such as detergents, cosmetics, metal processing, chemicals, etc. In recent years, detergents in China have developed rapidly, especially liquid detergents have shown rapid development momentum, so the demand for surfactants will be stable and high. increase.

Perm agent: MEA and acetylcysteine ​​derivatives, homologs and their salts, sodium sulfite, sodium carboxymethyl cellulose, disodium edetate, and deionized water synthetic perm agent treatment agent.

Cosmetics: MEA can be used as an emulsifier in cosmetics. TEA is an organic base commonly used in cosmetics, and has the properties of amines and alcohols. It can react with fatty acids, such as reacting with stearic acid to form triethanolamine stearate soap; it can be neutralized with various sulfates to form various anionic ammonium salt surfactants. It is often used as a pH adjuster in cosmetics and is often used as an emulsifier after the reaction. High-end triethanolamine TEA products are mainly used in cosmetics, such as Nivia, suitable herbal products and other products contain TEA. TEA for high-end products must have a purity of 99.9%.

(3) Pharmaceutical industry

Monoethanolamine is primarily a buffer in pharmaceutical formulations and is used in the preparation of emulsions. In addition, the most common therapeutic use of this product is as a oleic acid monoethanolamine injection, used as a tissue hardener. It can also be used as a stabilizer for phenytoin glucose solution for injection. And for preparing various therapeutic salts, for example, vitamin C monoethanolamine salt can be used for intramuscular injection, and salicylic acid monoethanolamine salt and undecylenic acid monoethanolamine salt can be used for treating rheumatism and Antifungal agent.

Ethanolamine can be used as raw materials to synthesize various essential drugs, such as anti-infective drugs furazolidone, morpholine biguanide, ketoconazole, anti-parasitic tetraimidazole, cardiovascular disease dipyridamole, veterinary drug as antibacterial growth promoting agent olaquindox And important nutrient enhancer taurine and so on.

At the same time, ethanolamine is used as raw material to synthesize raw materials of various pharmaceutical intermediates. For example, cysteamine hydrochloride prepared by synthesizing monoethanolamine or carbon disulfide as main raw materials can be used as an intermediate for inhibiting gastric acid drugs cimetidine and ranitidine, and also as an antidote for paracetamol poisoning. For the production of cosmetics and so on.

(4) Polyurethane industry

Ethanolamine, mainly triethanolamine, can be used as a catalyst and crosslinker in the production of polyurethane products. There are two main catalysts for polyurethane foam products: organotin compounds and tertiary amine compounds, of which tertiary amine compounds are mainly triethylenediamine. The cast type rigid foam requires the foam material to have good fluidity in the mold, and the less active triethanolamine is often used as the catalyst. In semi-hard foams and high resilience foams, triethanolamine or diethanolamine can be used as a crosslinking agent to ensure that the foam has a certain hardness and mechanical strength. Further, in the polyurethane elastomer product, triethanolamine can also be used as a crosslinking agent.

(5) Rubber processing industry

Triethanolamine is one of the important rubber processing aids. It is used as a vulcanization active agent for non-carbon black reinforcing rubber in rubber processing. It can also act as a dispersant and water repellent, especially in the delayed vulcanization of silica. Triethanolamine is an essential additive when the filler is used as a reinforcing agent.

(6) Textile industry

At present, China has become the world's largest producer of synthetic fibers, requiring a large amount of textile auxiliaries every year. Ethanolamine is used on the one hand as a fabric finish, softener and emulsifier in the textile industry. On the other hand, it is used to produce fluorescent whitening agent VBL for textiles. VBL is an old variety of fluorescent whitening agent. Domestic production is large and exported. It is expected that the consumption of ethanolamine in VBL will be stable in the near future, with a slight increase, while the shortage of textile auxiliaries in China's fabric finishing and other applications is also insufficient. Less, resulting in lower quality textiles in China. With the structural adjustment of textile products, the production and consumption of textile auxiliaries will increase.

(7) Metal cleaning and processing industry

Because ethanolamine has excellent emulsifying properties and less corrosiveness, ethanolamine is widely used in metal cleaning. At the same time, ethanolamine is also used in the formulation of metalworking fluids. In the next few years, metal cleaning and processing in China will have a rapid development, especially the soluble metal cutting fluid will develop faster.

(8) Pesticide industry

As the world's largest herbicide, glyphosate has a variety of synthetic routes. Among them, the MDA method in the IDA route can be used in large amounts to diethanolamine. Diethanolamine, also known as iminodiethanol, is an important intermediate for the herbicide glyphosate. The technology is advanced, the product quality is high, the three wastes are small, the technical indicators are more suitable for large-scale and high-efficiency operation, and the production process science, product quality and consumption are easy to control, and the process products are not restricted by European and American market access. Therefore, the glyphosate produced by this process is highly competitive in the market. However, in the past, China's diethanolamine mainly relied on imports, the upstream was restricted by raw material oil, the price fluctuation was relatively large, and the raw material source was unstable. The production of this process was affected to some other process routes. Such as the use of glycine process and IDA process in the production of hydrogen cyanide. In particular, the hydrocyanic acid process produces hydrogen cyanide from natural gas as a raw material to produce iminodiacetonitrile and iminodiacetic acid. The production of glyphosate by hydrocyanic acid is mainly carried out in foreign countries. The synthesis of glyphosate by this method can achieve continuous and large-scale production, with low investment, low waste water, high efficiency and strong product competitiveness.

(9) Ethyleneamine industry

Ethyleneamine is the main downstream product of monoethanolamine. Ethyleneamine refers to acyclic polymer products of ethylenediamine, such as ethylenediamine, diethylenetriamine, triethylenetetramine, tetraethylenepentamine, pentaethylenehexamine, etc., and cyclic amines such as piperazine. , aminoethyl piperazine, hydroxyethyl piperazine and the like. As an important fine chemical intermediate, ethyleneamine has a wide range of applications in organic synthesis, pharmaceuticals, dyes, pesticides, chemical additives, rubber and plastic additives, organic solvents and epoxy resin curing agents.

(10) Gas purification industry

An important market for ethanolamines is the desulfurizer for gas purification. Ethanolamine has two major fields in the market for gas purifiers: one is desulfurization of petroleum gas: including natural gas, crude oil and refinery gas desulfurization: the second is desulfurization of syngas: including the production of chemical fertilizer, methanol, acetic acid, syngas for city gas. Desulfurization. In refineries, dry gas desulfurization is part of catalytic cracking and hydrocracking units, and ethanolamine wet desulfurization processes are used, mainly diethanolamine. Diethanolamine is used as adsorbent to carry out the cycle of absorption and desorption of hydrogen sulfide under certain reaction conditions. The ethanolamine has a certain loss in the cycle, the loss amount and the scale of the refinery and the choice of secondary processing technology, crude oil The sulfur content in the medium is related to various factors. Generally, the heavy oil catalytic cracking unit of 1 million tons/year consumes about 30-40 tons/year of ethanolamine, and the consumption of ethanolamine will increase when processing high-sulfur oil.

Gas desulfurization of large and medium-sized ammonia plants is also an important market for ethanolamine. China's Lutianhua, Zhangzhou Fertilizer Plant, Chitianhua, Yunnan Fertilizer Plant, Liaohe Fertilizer Plant and other large-scale fertilizer plants and some medium-sized fertilizer plants also use ethanolamine desulfurization process.

In addition to refineries and fertilizer plants, most of the methanol and acetic acid synthesis gas, natural gas purification, coke oven gas purification and city gas purification are also ethanolamine adsorption.

(11) Other aspects

The consumption of ethanolamine in polyvinylpyrrolidone is worthy of attention. Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) is an important fine chemical product mainly used in the production of medicine, food and beer. However, due to the fluctuation of the price of monoethanolamine, the production process of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) has been basically changed to acetylene as raw material for production. In addition, ethanolamine is also used in aerospace and coating production. Monoethanolamine can be used in aqueous inks and is mainly used to adjust the pH of ink. Diethanolamine is used as a curing agent in epoxy electrophoretic powder coating formulations. In the production of new energy biodiesel, monoethanolamine can be used as a decolorizing agent.