A Review Of Production Process Of Ethylene Glycol And Its Market Analysis

Ethylene glycol is an important basic organic chemical raw materials, and can be used widely. It is applicable to various products such as polyesters and antifreeze and so on. With growth of demand on the polyesters and technological development of new downstream products, the demand for ethylene glycol increase rapidly on the world markets. China has overtook the United States as the world’s largest ethylene glycol market. However, plant capacity and output of ethylene glycol in China can not satisfy the application requirement. Ratio of import dependence is up to about 70%. China market has become the original power of ethylene glycol demand growth, the market development space of ethylene glycol is vast still. The major productive methods of ethylene glycol are oil-based chemical method and coal-based chemical method. The recent industrial synthesis of ethylene glycol is still based on oil-ethylene process route. Along with oil resource’s gradual depletion, development of project for production of ethylene glycol using coal as material accords with Chinese national condition with shortage of oil and gas resources and the relatively rich coal resources. The synthesis of ethylene glycol from coal has developed rapidly in recent years. In particular, synthesis of ethylene glycol via oxalate has been applied in industrial production processes due to wide material sources, high atom economy and operational safety. This paper gives a brief talk on the technological developments of ethylene glycol production, and analyzes and reviews the technological schemes and process routes for synthesis of ethylene glycol via oxalate. The status of supply & demand for ethylene glycol is analyzed. The technological development trend of ethylene glycol production is prospected.