- Transportation Fuel Field
Biodiesel has a long history of research and development and application abroad, especially in the field of transportation fuel. With the increasingly severe oil crisis and the continuous improvement of environmental protection requirements, the demand for biodiesel in the field of transportation fuel will grow rapidly.
Compared with fossil diesel, biodiesel has many excellent characteristics. Many countries around the world have widely used biodiesel as a substitute or additive for fossil diesel in the field of energy.
The fast growth of biodiesel industry has been driven by the growth of diesel consumption and the implementation of biofuel addition policy in EU. According to Eurostat statistics, the EU biodiesel consumption in 2005 was 2.852 million tons, and in 2014 the total biodiesel consumption increased to 12.85 million tons, with an annual compound growth rate of more than 18.20%.
A.Environmental plasticizers
Plasticizer, also known as plasticizer, is a kind of material added to materials (usually plastics and resins) to improve their plasticity, flexibility and tensile properties. It is the most important assistant in modern plastics industry and plays a decisive role in promoting the development of plastics industry, especially polyvinyl chloride (PVC) industry. There are more than 100 kinds of plasticizers, which can be classified into phenyl, epoxy, phthalate, aliphatic dibasic esters, polyol esters, phenyl polyesters, citrate esters and so on according to chemical structure, and general plasticizers and special plasticizers according to functional classification. Universal plasticizers have a wide range of applicability without special functions, such as phthalates. Special plasticizers not only have the function of general plasticizers, but also have some special functions, such as cold-resistant plasticizers, flame-retardant plasticizers, environmentally friendly plasticizers, permanent plasticizers and so on. At present, the most widely used plasticizers are Phenyls represented by dioctyl phthalate (DOP), which accounts for about 80% of the total output of plasticizers. In recent years, more and more people have realized that DOP and other phenyl plasticizers are carcinogenic, and the main countries and regions (such as the European Union, the United States and so on) have more and more restrictions on their scope of use, which has accelerated the research and development and promotion of environmental plasticizers.
The epoxy fatty acid methyl ester and bio-ester plasticizer produced with biodiesel as main raw materials have been recognized as environmentally friendly plasticizers in the market. They can replace DOP and other o-phenyl plasticizers in toys, medicine and medical materials, food packaging, water supply pipelines, household decorative materials and other environmentally demanding fields. According to the forecast, the global plasticizer market will exceed 19.5 billion US dollars in 2020. Although phthalate plasticizers are still the main plasticizers used in the world at present, accounting for more than 78% of the total demand in 2012, they have decreased significantly from 88% in 2005. It is expected that the proportion will drop to about 75.5% by 2018, and the market share of environmentally friendly plasticizers will increase accordingly.
Surfactants are substances with fixed hydrophilic and lipophilic groups, which can be aligned on the surface of the solution and can significantly reduce the surface tension. Surfactants have a series of physical and chemical effects such as wetting or anti-sticking, emulsifying or demulsifying, foaming or defoaming, solubilizing, dispersing, washing, anti-corrosion and anti-static. The application of surfactant has developed from daily industry to many industries such as petroleum, food, agriculture, health, environment and new materials. It covers almost all fine chemical fields and enjoys the reputation of “industrial monosodium glutamate”.
C.Industrial Solvents
Industrial solvent is a kind of solution that can dissolve solid substances and form homogeneous mixture system. Industrial solvents are widely used in many fields, such as coating industry, petrochemical industry, rubber industry, fiber industry, washing industry, medicine, agriculture, chemical intermediates and so on.
Biodiesel has the characteristics of low VOC content, high flash point, non-toxic and biodegradable. It is an environmentally friendly solvent. The main application fields of biodiesel as industrial solvent are as follows: used as cleaning agent for industrial parts, resin washing and removing agent, used as printing ink cleaning agent instead of toluene, used as adhesives removing agent instead of acetone, used as graffiti scavenger instead of mineral oil essence, etc.
D.Industrial Lubricants
Industrial lubricant is a lubricating medium used to reduce friction resistance and wear of friction pairs of industrial machinery. It can also cool, clean and prevent pollution of friction pairs. Biodiesel is a good lubricating additive for fossil diesel because of its good lubricity and biodegradability. In practice, adding more than 0.5% biodiesel can make low sulfur diesel meet the lubricity requirements. In addition, biodiesel can also be used as lubricants for food machinery and daily rust removal.