In chemical production, corrosion of chemical equipment is a major problem. Due to corrosion, a huge amount of steel (2594, 8.00, 0.31%) is wasted every year. In my country, the main reason for equipment damage in the chemical industry is also corrosion. As a result, the service life of many equipment is only 1-2 years, and the shortest is only 1-2 months. Titanium has extremely excellent performance in corrosion resistance, wear resistance, and erosion resistance. Although the one-time investment of titanium equipment is high, its service life is several times or even dozens of times that of carbon steel, stainless steel, and cast iron equipment. Due to the outstanding advantages of titanium such as low density, high strength, and good corrosion resistance, it has successfully solved the serious corrosion problem of equipment in chemical production and has been favored, bringing a leap forward in the anti-corrosion technology of the chemical industry.

The chemical system is the earliest and largest industrial sector to use titanium in China's civil industry. In the past 10 years, the amount of titanium used in my country's chemical industry is equivalent to the sum of the production of titanium in 2009 and 2010. The table lists the proportion of titanium used in various fields of my country's chemical industry

Application of titanium in the chemical industry

Currently, the only application areas of titanium in the chemical industry are:

1. Chlor-alkali industry

The earliest and largest user of titanium in the chemical industry is the chlor-alkali industry. This includes the production of chlorine, chlorine oxides, pesticides, bleaching powder, etc. In the production of chlorine, titanium equipment and pipelines account for almost a quarter of its total mass. Such as metal anode electrolyzers, ion membrane electrolyzers and anode liquid pumps, shell-and-tube wet chlorine coolers, chlorine wastewater dechlorination towers, chlorine cooling and washing towers, refined brine preheaters, vacuum dechlorination pumps and valves, etc.

2. Soda ash industry

In the production of soda ash, titanium materials are mainly used for crystallization external coolers, distillation tower top ammonia condensers, ammonium chloride mother liquor heaters, plate heat exchangers, umbrella plate heat exchangers, carbonization tower cooling pipes, carbon dioxide turbine compressor rotor impellers, alkali pumps, etc.

3. Vacuum salt making industry

Titanium ammonia evaporator, titanium preheater, titanium precooler, titanium flange, titanium tube sheet, titanium pump shell and titanium elbow.

4. Petrochemical fiber

At present, some titanium equipment has been used by petrochemical fiber enterprises such as polyester, nylon, and vinylon, whether imported from abroad or designed and manufactured domestically. The application of titanium equipment has played a positive role in the development of chemical fiber production in my country, especially in safe, stable and continuous production, improving product quality, preventing premature corrosion and failure of stainless steel, increasing equipment life, reducing parking and maintenance, and improving comprehensive economic benefits.

5. Fine chemical industry

The industrial raw materials of propylene oxide unit are highly corrosive media. The two main raw materials used in PO production are liquid chlorine and propylene. These highly corrosive media lay the foundation for the corrosion of PO production equipment pipelines. Under such process conditions, metals such as carbon steel, Al, Cu, Ni, and stainless steel cannot resist corrosion. Only titanium is an ideal corrosion-resistant metal material.

6. Inorganic salt industry

Inorganic salts mainly include chlorates and potassium salts. Domestic sodium chlorate production has developed rapidly in the past two years, with a total production capacity of over 1 million tons, and about 500,000 tons are under expansion or preliminary work. Chlorate titanium equipment mainly includes electrolytic cells, titanium anodes, reaction generators, evaporators, etc., and about 15 tons of titanium are needed for every 10,000 tons of sodium chlorate.

Potassium salt products include potassium chloride, potassium sulfate, potassium nitrate, potassium carbonate, etc. At present, the total production capacity of potassium nitrate and potassium carbonate in China is about 600,000 tons. Evaporators, preheating tanks and coolers in the production of potassium nitrate and potassium carbonate require titanium equipment.

7. Other industries

Titanium dioxide Titanium is used for thin film concentrators, calcining kiln feed pipes, centrifuge distribution plates, etc.

Urea Titanium is used for urea synthesis tower linings, ammonia stripping towers, general decomposition tower heaters, methylamine pump inlet and outlet valves and springs, high-pressure mixers, etc.

Dye Titanium is used in coil heat exchangers, absorption towers, purification tower nozzles, fans, water ring vacuum pumps, filters, etc.

Nitric Acid Titanium is used in nitric acid evaporators, nitrogen oxide tail gas preheaters, nitric acid steam preheaters, gas scrubbers, rapid coolers, condensers, turbo blowers, pumps, valves, pipes, etc.