Existing Problems of Maleic Anhydride in Our Country

Maleic anhydride is the world’s third largest acetic anhydride, in the chemical and pharmaceutical sector has a wide application. In recent years, China's apparent consumption of maleic anhydride is increasing. Whether the production of maleic anhydride technology or production capabilities have been greatly developed, but compared with foreign advanced level there are still some problems.

Main application areas
Unsaturated polyester resin demand for maleic anhydride 71.1% of the total demand , paint about 6.2% tartaric acid about 3.8% , about 0.9% lubricant additives , agrochemicals about 1.4% , succinic acid anhydride and about 2.4%, BDO, THF and other hydrogenated products accounted for approximate 2.8%, accounting for 11.4%in other areas.
1. An unsaturated polyester resin. Unsaturated polyester resins are the main areas of consumption of maleic anhydride. Unsaturated polyester resin is a thermosetting resin is one of the main varieties, owing to its excellent mechanical properties, electrical properties and chemical resistance, and the process is simple, it has a wide range of uses.
2. Coatings. Maleic anhydride in the application of paint is mainly used in the production of alkyd resin paints and amino resin coating.
3. Tartaric acid Maleic anhydride synthesis of fumaric acid and then synthesis of tartaric acid is maleic anhydride traditional areas of application. Tartaric acid is mainly used as food acidulant, its salts and metal processing as silver mirror, but can also be used in tanning and telecommunications equipment industries.

Existing problems
After years of development, whether it is the production of maleic anhydride technology or production capabilities have been greatly developed, but compared with foreign advanced level there are still some problems, mainly reflected in:
1. Irrational layout. Maleic anhydride main purpose is unsaturated polyester resin industry, and our country unsaturated polyester resin production units but most concentrated in the eastern Jiangsu , Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong in the south , along with supporting the production of raw materials anhydride production enterprises are mostly in the north of Yangtze River.
2. The rate of device utilization is lower.
3. ASingle production technology. At present, the production of maleic anhydride technology mainly depend on the benzene, not with international popular method of n-butane production process, catalyst research and associated with each subsequent refining process optimization level remains to be further improved.