The price of chloroform continues to rise, and blind expansion of production may face risks

Chloroform is also known as chloroform, chloroform, and carbon trichloride. Its chemical formula is CHCl₃. Its CAS number is 67-66-3. Its melting point is -63.7℃ and its boiling point is 61.2℃. It is colorless and transparent. It is a heavy liquid with a special smell and is highly volatile. It has a distinct sweet taste in the throat after inhalation. It is insoluble in water, but soluble in ethanol, ether, benzene, carbon disulfide, etc. Chloroform is not easy to burn, but it is sensitive to light. Under the action of light, it can be oxidized by oxygen in the air into hydrogen chloride and highly toxic phosgene. Therefore, chloroform is listed in the “List of Precursor Chemicals” The second category is more toxic and is generally stored in sealed brown bottles.

Chloroform can be used as a raw material for organic synthesis, mainly used to produce Freon (F-21, F-22, F-23), rocket fuel, etc. In addition, in medicine, chloroform can also be used as antibiotics and anesthetics. However, because it can cause damage to the human body during anesthesia, its application in this field has been small; in organic synthesis, chloroform can be used to produce spices, Solvents and extractants for grease, resin, rubber, etc. In terms of production technology, in the early days, chloroform mainly used ethanol and acetone as raw materials, and was reacted with the bleaching agent calcium hypochlorite to produce chloroform. At this stage, methane and chlorine are mainly mixed, or methyl chloride and dichloromethane are used. Chloroform is produced by partial chlorination of methane mixtures.

At present, domestic companies that can produce chloroform include Juhua Co., Ltd., Guangxi Tiandong Jinyi Technology Co., Ltd., Jinling Dongying New Materials Equipment Co., Ltd., Jiangxi Liwen Industrial Co., Ltd., Jiangsu Liwen Industrial Co., Ltd., Luxi Chemical, Shandong Jinmao Chemical Co., Ltd., etc. Among them, Juhua Co., Ltd.’s core business is fluorine chemicals. It has a complete fluorine chemical industry chain and is a leading enterprise in the domestic chloroform field. In addition, judging from the distribution area of ​​production enterprises, domestic chloroform production is mainly concentrated in Shandong, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and other regions. Shandong’s chemical industry chain is relatively complete and its chloroform production capacity is relatively high. According to the “Global Chloroform Industry In-depth Market Research and Key Area Research Report 2020-2024” released by the Industrial Research Center, In 2021, my country’s chloroform production capacity will be 1.76 million tons, of which Shandong’s production capacity accounts for 57.2%.

Industrial analysts said that due to the increase in upstream coal and methanol prices, the production cost of chloroform has increased. In addition, due to environmental protection , production restriction policies, the production capacity of production companies such as Luxi Chemical has been greatly reduced, which has caused domestic supply of chloroform to tighten and product prices to continue to rise. In September 2022 alone, its price rose from 2,825 yuan/ton to 4,000 yuan/ton, increasing The rate is 41.59%. It is expected that in the future, as the refrigerant industry, the main application field of chloroform, continues to develop, the market demand for chloroform will also increase; and as corporate overhauls are completed and new companies enter the industry, the supply of chloroform will increase , its product prices may fall back, and large-scale production expansion may face greater risks.