At the 2013 China International New Material Exhibition held recently, polyurethane insulation materials companies and manufacturing equipment enterprises accounted for half of the country. A person in charge of polyurethane insulation materials told the reporter: “The consumption of polyurethane insulation materials has increased significantly this year. Under the background of the country’s efforts to promote the construction of green and energy-saving buildings, the development prospect of polyurethane insulation materials is very broad.”

Wide prospects for significant advantages It is understood that the heat transfer coefficient of rigid polyurethane foam insulation material for construction is 0.017-0.024, which is the lowest compared with other insulation materials and the best insulation performance. Moreover, the improved polyurethane material is low-smoke and low-toxic, does not pollute the environment, and even if a fire occurs, it also protects the environment because of its high-efficiency carbide layer protection. In addition, polyurethane materials have strong adhesion, stability, and good material coverage, and are not prone to potential safety hazards such as falling off of the external wall surface, water leaks, etc., and are impervious to water, sound insulation, vibration absorption, and other auxiliary functions. It is an ideal green building. material.

In January of this year, the General Office of the State Council forwarded the "Green Building Action Plan" formulated by the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, and called for the implementation of green building actions and strict enforcement of mandatory standards for building energy conservation. During the "12th Five-Year Plan" period, China will complete the construction of 1 billion square meters of new green buildings; by the end of 2015, 20% of new buildings in cities and towns will meet the requirements of green building standards; and the completion of heating measurement and energy-saving reconstruction of existing residential buildings in northern heating areas More than 100 million square meters, in hot summer and cold winter areas, there are 50 million square meters of energy-saving reconstruction of residential buildings, 120 million square meters of energy-saving renovation of public buildings and public offices, and 400,000 sets of energy-saving demonstrations of rural dilapidated buildings. Relevant person in charge of Zhengzhou Nisshin Building Materials Co., Ltd. told the reporter that the implementation of green buildings will, to a large extent, be beneficial to the market application of polyurethane insulation materials.

Another industry source stated that under the general trend of energy conservation and emission reduction in the world, building energy efficiency standards will continue to increase over time, and new types of exterior wall thermal insulation materials with good fire protection performance and environmental protection and energy saving will usher in a good show. opportunity.

In the above-mentioned many favorable factors, in recent years, the consumption of polyurethane insulation materials has shown a linear increasing trend. Data show that from 2005 to 2010, the average annual growth rate of polyurethane insulation materials in China is 16%. "Compared with polystyrene (EPS) and extruded polystyrene foam (XPS), polyurethane insulation material has the advantages of low thermal conductivity, flame retardancy, etc. It is the most ideal building energy-saving external wall insulation material, but due to the high price For the sake of reason, polyurethane insulation material has a low share in China's building energy-saving material market, which is still less than 10%.” The person in charge of Zhengzhou Nisshin Building Materials Co., Ltd. said that in foreign countries, polyurethanes occupy a considerable amount in the building insulation material market. The share is up to 57% in the United States and 32% in Japan. But from another perspective, this shows that China's polyurethane insulation material has a huge market potential. The industry expects that the external wall insulation market scale in China will reach 100 billion yuan during the 12th Five-Year Plan period. In the future, with the further advancement of the low-carbon economy development route, the consumption of polyurethane insulation materials will have a broad space for growth.

At present, the vast market demand for polyurethane insulation materials in China has attracted the attention of foreign manufacturers. BASF, Huntsman, Bayer and other international chemical giants have stepped up their efforts to expand the Chinese market. The development focus of rigid foam polyurethane materials in the world has begun to shift to China.

The fact that production is not standardized causes people to misunderstand that “polyurethane is a good thing, and it is a kind of material that can achieve green building energy saving.” said Zhang Shenglin, an analyst at Zhuo Chuang. Relevant information shows that using one cubic meter of polyurethane insulation material can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 270 kilograms a year. Calculating the consumption of 1 million tons of polyurethane insulation material in 1 year can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 7 million tons a year.

However, in recent years, due to the “11.15” major fire in Shanghai and the fire accident of the CCTV's new site allocation, polyurethane insulation materials were once hit into the “cold house”. Zhang Shenglin stated that the occurrence of the “11.15” major fire in Shanghai and the fire accident of the CCTV's new site allocation were largely related to improper construction. In the construction and installation of building insulation materials, it is very common that the wall outlet is not closed tightly, there is a gap at the interface, and the cracking of the facing layer is very common. These problems not only affect the thermal insulation performance and service life of the external insulation system, but also have serious safety hazards. Experts once pointed out that for B1 and B2 flame retardant and fire retardant insulation materials, as long as there is no accident during construction, and can achieve the construction technical specifications, then the chance of fire in the use process will be very low.

According to Ge Xuxiao, an analyst at Baichuan, the qualified rate of polyurethane insulation materials is worrying, in addition to improper construction. In this regard, Zhang Shenglin also said that the polyurethane insulation board's combustion performance is B2 grade, B1 grade, with flame retardant. Most of the polyurethane insulation materials currently in use on the market do not meet this standard. The reason, Zhang Shenglin said that polyurethane insulation materials and flammable, combustible XPS, EPS in the price competition is not dominant. Each cubic meter of B1 polyurethane insulation material is 1800 yuan, while XPS 650 yuan per cubic meter, EPS 350 yuan per cubic meter, the maximum price difference up to 1450 yuan, with a thickness of 5 cm, the difference per square meter can be as high as 73 yuan . Therefore, some unscrupulous manufacturers make a fuss about the raw materials of the products to reduce the production cost. In this regard, Ge Xuxiao and Zhang Shenglin said that polyurethane, as an environmentally friendly and energy-saving new material, has no problem in itself, but there are too many unqualified products on the market, and the competent authorities should strengthen the supervision of polyurethane insulation materials.

In addition, industry insiders stated that polyurethane is an excellent material for building energy conservation, but people have limited awareness of it, especially the occurrence of fire accidents, design units and construction units do not understand polyurethane insulation materials, and fake and shoddy products flood the market. These factors have caused the relevant departments and ordinary people to misunderstand the polyurethane and hindered the sound development of polyurethane insulation materials. In order to give full play to the comprehensive advantages of polyurethane insulation materials, production companies must consciously abide by the principle of self-discipline in the industry and resolutely put products that do not meet safety requirements into the market.

Responding to the Challenge of Compounding Modularization into Trends On January 1 this year, Beijing announced the implementation of 75% of building energy efficiency standards, which is a good information for the polyurethane insulation industry. The industry expects that with the improvement of building energy efficiency standards and the promotion of large-scale renovation of existing buildings and the promotion of rural warm house projects, China’s annual average building insulation project will be approximately 400 million square meters. Future polyurethane wall insulation materials will still be available. Widely used, by 2015, the market share will reach 30% -40%.

It is worth noting that challenges will also coexist with opportunities. In March of this year, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development met with all the enterprises that have filed special transformation projects for the old districts of Beijing. The meeting required that: “This year, rigid polyurethane composite panels must be plastered on site, and each insulation board on the site must be Must be able to pass the composite A-level test, and the core material must be B1." This means that polyurethane insulation materials to take the green energy-saving construction of the ride, we must improve the production process and increase production efficiency.

At present, many polyurethane insulation material production enterprises have been actively improving the production process, large-scale production of core materials for the B1 level, both sides coated with flame-retardant inorganic materials composite A-class rigid polyurethane foam composite board. Zhang Shenglin said that the composite material itself not only maintains the thermal insulation properties of polyurethane materials, but also provides high fire performance, and it can also reduce the chance of fire during the construction process. This is a trend in the development of polyurethane insulation materials industry. Driven by this trend, some institutions have also launched an "inorganic modified polymer material" (that is, the modification of flame-retardant polyurethane and other organic polymer materials and high flame-retardant inorganic materials into inorganic modified polymer materials). the study.

In addition, Zhang Shenglin also stated that modular production is also a development trend of polyurethane insulation materials. He believes that fireproof sub-warehouses and external insulation walls made of blocks can delay the spread of fire when external wall fires occur. In fact, after testing 44 times with the internationally accepted British model fire BS 8414-1 standard, Ji Guangqi, a senior engineer at the China Academy of Building Research Fire Prevention Institute, found that the structural fire protection effect of insulation materials is much better than the material itself. He believes that adopting scientific and appropriate protective structure measures, renovating the external thermal insulation structure, and highlighting the overall problem of system fire resistance are effective ways to solve the external thermal insulation of external walls in China.

Industry sources said that the promotion of building energy-saving polyurethane insulation industry has brought opportunities, at the same time, fire protection issues can not be ignored, polyurethane insulation materials companies must grasp the market trends, improve production efficiency and production processes, on this basis, the industry companies Must unite together to jointly maintain a rare market opportunities for hard foam polyurethane and jointly meet new challenges.