"Environmental storm" forced the transformation of the paint and coating industry.

China Paint Network
: "Environmental storm" has come again. Recently, the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, the Municipal Development and Reform Commission, the Municipal Finance Bureau jointly issued "on volatile organic matter sewage charges notice." "Notice" pointed out that Beijing will be furniture manufacturing, packaging printing, petrochemical, automotive manufacturing, electronics industry and other five major industries in 17 industry categories from October 1 to start collecting volatile organic matter (i.e. VOCs) sewage charges.
Not uniquely, in June this year, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance and environmental protection departments have jointly formulated and issued the "Volatile Organic Sewage Charges Pilot Measures", which stipulates that the volatile organic sewage charges pilot industry for petrochemical, packaging and printing two categories, and also on October 1, 2015 began to implement. The news has raised concerns about environmental issues in industries such
volatile organic

paints and coatings. What exactly is Volatile Organic Matter (VOCs)? What does it have to do with the paint and coatings industry? What impact will this "environmental storm" have on the industry? The reporter conducted an interview on this.
, VOCs are defined by the World Health Organization as a variety of organic compounds with a boiling point of 50 to 260 degrees C at room temperature. According to its chemical structure, it can be further divided into: alkanes, aromatics, esters, aldehydes and so on. More than 300 have been identified so far. The most common are benzene, toluene, xylene, styrene, trenyl chloroethylene, chloromethane, tropocyanate (TDI), dichloroethylene and so on.
It is worth noting that VOCs are an important source of urban haze and photochemical pollution, which can react with nitrogen oxides in sunlight to produce ozone, secondary aerosol particles, near-surface ozone, PM2.5 and other important premedumates. It is no less harmful to the human body than PM2.5, when the volatile organic matter in the room reaches a certain concentration, will cause headache, nausea, vomiting, fatigue and other symptoms, serious even lead to convulsions, coma, damage to the liver, kidneys, brain and nervous system, resulting in memory loss and other serious consequences, and even cancer and leukemia.
reporter learned that, as a veritable paint country, China's annual emissions of VOCs is very alarming. In 2014, China's total coating production reached 16.4918 million tons, such a huge output behind the hidden environmental pollution and energy consumption, and such a base of paint products in the coating process will also emit millions of tons of VOCs into the atmosphere.
the serious harm, in recent years, the state's attention to VOCs governance has been increasing, and corresponding measures have been introduced to strengthen governance. Shenzhen has banned solvent-based coatings, adhesives and other unqualified decorative materials since July 1, and Jiangsu Province in early September also issued the "Measures for the Prevention and Control of Atmospheric Volatile Organic Matter Pollution in Jiangsu Province" (draft for comments).
It is understood that Beijing chose the "furniture manufacturing, packaging printing, petrochemical, automobile manufacturing, electronics industry" five industries as a pilot levy VOCs sewage charges, because these five industries are the main volatile organic emissions industry in Beijing's industrial sector. The paint and coatings industry, although not yet included in the pilot, does not mean peace of mind.
, an analyst at Zhongyu Information, said the paint and coatings industry felt "pressure mountain" this year. From the "strictest environmental protection law" at the beginning of the year, to February 1 to start the 4% paint consumption tax, to October 1 to implement the VOCs sewage charges, are restricting the development of the paint and coating industry this year. In addition to policy pressure, this year's real estate industry depression also led to the downturn in the home wear industry, paint industry demand fell, according to Data Monitoring data, as of July, this year's total domestic paint production of 926.67 million tons, an increase of only about 4%, including Guangdong, Shandong, Tianjin, Beijing and other paint production provinces have negative growth phenomenon.
, solvent-based coatings account for about 18% of VOCs emissions. Among them, furniture manufacturing, automobile manufacturing and other industries belong to paint and coatings, one of the main downstream industries, so beijing's policy may lead to furniture manufacturing, automobile manufacturing industry costs increase. "According to Beijing's new policy, companies that have environmental violations such as exceeding volatile organic emissions will pay four times as much as companies that halve their emissions on top of the emissions level." Ma Haiying, an analyst at Zhongyu Information, said the measure would help companies accelerate restructuring, reduce volatile organic emissions and improve the quality of the atmospheric environment.
It is understood that At present, China's
-industrial coatings
can be divided into
water-based coatings
, solvent-based coatings and
powder coatings
, of which solvent-based coatings still occupy the leading position in the global industrial coatings technology. Take the furniture industry as an example, in the current domestic paint market, PU paint (polyurethane paint) accounted for 78% of the market share, while the use of water-based paint only about 7%-8%.
water-based paint with water as a thinner, its composition of 70%-90% is harmless water to the human body and the environment, does not contain benzene, halogenated hydrocarbons and other toxic organic solvents and formaldehyde, lead, chromium and other heavy metal compounds, is a safe and non-polluting environmental protection paint. About 50% of the traditional paint content is toxic, polluted, burnable organic solvents, these solvents in the coating film process volatile into the air, not only resulting in a great waste of resources, but also affect the pollution of the environment and air. However, despite the growing voice of water-based paint, it is difficult to subvert the market position of traditional paint, the main reason is that the current stage of water-based paint research and development process is not mature enough, coupled with high production costs and the physical properties of water-based paint limitations, making the promotion of water-based paint has a certain degree of difficulty.
experts pointed out that Beijing's implementation of the step-by-step VOCs sewage charges, this measure may greatly promote furniture enterprises and
paint enterprises
to "oil-to-water" transformation. Experts believe that coating enterprises should speed up the adjustment and transformation, the implementation of water-based paint instead of oily paint, actively respond to the sustainable development of low VOCs environmentally friendly paint, reduce volatile organic emissions, promote the transformation of the industry structure, guide the coating industry healthy and sustainable development, improve the quality of the atmospheric environment.
Zhong said that with the "environmental storm" efforts continue to increase, the paint industry "oil-to-water" has become imperative, furniture manufacturing, automotive manufacturing industry will gradually cooperate with water-based coatings, paint coatings industry after the market demand will slowly be squeezed out by water-based coatings, so the later, including solvent oil products, including traditional oil-based solvent products demand will also show a shrinking state year by year. (Provided by Zhou Xiaoqing, Correspondent of Foshan Building Materials Industry Association)