Paint manufacturers who do not want to be included in the "pollution blacklist" must pay close attention to the new regulations on VOC emissions in the paint industry!
On April 14th, the Ministry of Environmental Protection released two draft national environmental protection standards: "Emission Standards for Air Pollutants from the Coatings, Inks and Adhesives Industry" and "Control Standards for Unorganized Emissions of Volatile Organic Compounds".
"Volatile Organic Compounds Unorganized Emission Control Standard"
This "Volatile Organic Compounds Unorganized Emission Control Standard" is a standard revision project of the Ministry of Environmental Protection in 2014. It was led by the Environmental Standard Institute of the Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences to organize the formulation of the standard. This standard is the first to be released.
Currently, there are 13 national standards that have been released for VOCs emission control (5 of which are under revision), and 18 standards are being formulated. This standard is a comprehensive standard. The emission limits of the exhaust stack are consistent with the "Agricultural Pollutants Comprehensive Emission Standard" (GB16297-1996); compared with industry standards, it is stricter than the "Agricultural Pollutants Emission Standard for Synthetic Leather and Artificial Leather Industry" (GB21902-2008), and is more lenient than other industry standards. The emission limits of the exhaust stack of this standard are the same as the control indicators of Germany, which are all in terms of mass concentration, and the control limits are relatively more lenient than the German standards.
The "Volatile Organic Compounds Unorganized Emission Control Standard (Draft for Comment)" lists the comment units, including: China Coatings Industry Association, China Surface Engineering Association Coating Branch, Shanghai Coating Industry Association, China Furniture Association, Shanghai Chemical Research Institute, Changzhou Guanghui Chemical Co., Ltd., Chongqing Three Gorges Paint Co., Ltd., Guangdong Hua Ren Paint Co., Ltd., Nippon Paint (China) Co., Ltd., Shanghai Huayi (Group) Company, Dow (Zhangjiagang) Chemical Company, BASF (China) Co., Ltd., Bayer MaterialScience (China) Co., Ltd., Wanhua Chemical Group Co., Ltd., China Chemical Group Corporation, China Haohua Chemical (Group) Corporation, etc.
This standard stipulates the control requirements for VOCs unorganized emissions collection and treatment systems, equipment and pipeline component leaks, volatile organic liquid storage and loading, and open liquid surface emissions, as well as process control requirements and pollution monitoring requirements within the enterprise area and surrounding areas.
The standard stipulates that new enterprises shall implement VOCs unorganized emissions control in accordance with the provisions of this standard starting from July 1, 2017, and existing enterprises shall implement it starting from January 1, 2019. Localities can also, based on local environmental protection needs and economic and technical conditions, approve the implementation of this standard ahead of schedule by provincial governments.
The standard stipulates the control requirements for VOCs unorganized emissions collection and treatment systems, equipment and pipeline component leaks, volatile organic liquid storage and loading, open liquid surface emissions, and control requirements for process and pollution monitoring within the enterprise area and surrounding areas.
This standard is applicable to the VOCs unorganized emissions management of existing enterprises, production or service facilities, as well as environmental impact assessment, environmental protection facility design, completion environmental protection acceptance, and VOCs unorganized emissions management after the project's commissioning of enterprises and production facilities involving VOCs unorganized emissions.
"Coatings, Inks and Adhesives Industrial Atmospheric Pollutants Emission Standard (Draft for Comment)"
This standard is the first to be released. It stipulates: Industrial or production facilities of coatings, inks and adhesives enterprises or facilities shall comply with the corresponding national pollutant emission standards for water pollutants, malodorous pollutants (except styrene), environmental noise, and the corresponding national solid waste pollution control standards for the identification, treatment and disposal of solid waste. The boilers and heat transfer oil furnaces are subject to GB13271 "Boiler Atmospheric Pollutants Emission Standard" or local corresponding standards.
The standard stipulates: Starting from July 1, 2017, for new enterprises and starting from January 1, 2019, for existing enterprises, the control of atmospheric pollutants shall be implemented in accordance with the provisions of this standard, and the provisions of GB16297 "Agricultural Pollutants Comprehensive Emission Standard" shall no longer be implemented. Local authorities can, based on their local environmental protection needs and economic and technical conditions, approve the early implementation of this standard by provincial governments.
The list of units for soliciting opinions on this "Standard" includes: China Coatings Industry Association, BASF Shanghai Coatings Co., Ltd., AkzoNobel (China) Investment Co., Ltd., Henkel (China) Investment Co., Ltd., Nippon Paint Investment Co., Ltd., Hailong (China) Management Co., Ltd., Pompeja Management (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Fustate New Materials Technology Development Co., Ltd., Xinhe New Materials Co., Ltd., Sanchi Paint Co., Ltd., Northwest Yongxin Chemical Co., Ltd., Guangdong Huaren Paint Co., Ltd., Guangdong Zhujiang Chemical Paint Co., Ltd., Zhanchen New Materials Group Co., Ltd., Jiaoboli Chemical Group Co., Ltd., Wuhan Shuanghu Coatings Co., Ltd., Hunan Xiangjiang Paint Group Co., Ltd., Changzhou Guanghui Chemical Co., Ltd., Nanjing Changjiang Paint Co., Ltd., Ocean Chemical Research Institute Co., Ltd., Shandong Lehua Paint Industry Co., Ltd., Shaanxi Baotashan Paint Co., Ltd., Xi'an Jingjian Paint Co., Ltd., Shanghai Huasun Chemical Co., Ltd., Shanghai Huayi Fine Chemicals Co., Ltd., Tianjin Lighthouse Paint Co., Ltd., Zhejiang Daqiao Paint Co., Ltd., Zhejiang Chuanzhao Paint Co., Ltd., Chongqing Three Gorges Paint Co., Ltd., etc.
The "Standard" stipulates: The emission limits of atmospheric pollutants from the coating, ink and adhesive industries, as well as the monitoring and supervision requirements, apply to the management of atmospheric pollutant emissions from existing coating, ink and adhesive industrial enterprises or production facilities, as well as the environmental impact assessment, environmental protection facility design, completion acceptance and subsequent atmospheric pollutant emissions management of coating, ink and adhesive industrial construction projects; and the production facilities of coating, ink and adhesive industrial enterprises that carry out synthesis resin production and modification shall comply with GB31572 "Pollutant Emission Standards for Synthetic Resin Industry", and the production of emulsified liquid shall follow this standard.
The "Standard" stipulates that existing enterprises will implement the existing standards from January 1, 2019, and implement the emission limits of atmospheric pollutants specified in Table 1 after January 1, 2019. New enterprises will implement the emission limits of atmospheric pollutants specified in Table 1 from July 1, 2017.
Key regional enterprises or production facilities shall implement the special emission limits of atmospheric pollutants as stipulated in Table 2. The geographical scope and time for implementing the special emission limits of atmospheric pollutants shall be stipulated by the State Council's environmental protection department or provincial governments.
The "Standard (Compilation Note)" states that the main organic solvents volatilization comes from the coating and ink production workshops, and the emission volume may account for 70-90% of the total emission volume. The pollutant emission situation of the production process of coatings and inks is related to the scale of the coating factory, the type of grinding and dispersion equipment, and the feeding method.
The "Standard (Compilation Note)" states that the pollutant emission situation of different enterprises' process links has been summarized. It was found that the situation of unorganized emissions is very serious. During actual production, the process of three-roll rolling and moving cylinder operation is the most serious unorganized emission. During the investigation, it was found that if the cover containing solvents is not covered, NMHC (or TVOC) will be very serious, and in extreme cases, it can reach tens of thousands of ppm. The measurement results of exhaust stacks, except for a few high values, have relatively low concentrations, which may be closely related to the lack of complete collection.
The "Standard (Compilation Note)" predicts that the cost of process control technology transformation is approximately 1-3 million yuan. For a coating production enterprise with an annual output of 7,000 tons of solvent-based coatings, the process transformation cost is 800,000 yuan, and for an enterprise with an annual output of nearly 50,000 tons of solvent-based coatings, the process technology transformation cost is estimated to be 2-2.5 million yuan. Approximately 50-100 yuan per ton of output.
After the implementation of this standard, the renovation costs for enterprises are approximately 1 million to 3 million yuan per million tons of coatings. The operating costs are approximately 500,000 to 1 million yuan per year. Taking Shanghai as an example, according to the statistics of the China Coatings Industry Association, in 2013, the coatings industry in Shanghai achieved a net profit of 2.6 billion yuan and produced approximately 1.5 million tons of coatings, with an average profit margin of about 16 million yuan per million products.
The "Standard (Compilation Note)" states, "On average, enterprises' investment accounts for about 1/3 to 1/2 of their annual profits, while operating costs only account for about 1/10 of their profits. Therefore, enterprises should be able to bear it."
The "Standard (Compilation Note)" states that, of course, there are differences between state-owned enterprises and internationally renowned enterprises, and there are also differences in enterprise scale, which may lead to deviations in cost accounting. For small-scale enterprises, the pressure is relatively high. However, for small-scale enterprises, the focus is on process control, and the investment in process control due to the small scale will also be reduced. Therefore, the standard is acceptable for most enterprises.
The "Standard (Compilation Note)" analyzed the environmental and social benefits after the implementation of the standard: (1) The strictness of the standard. From the perspective of the standard values, after the implementation of this standard, benzene has been strictly controlled by more than 90%, xylene + toluene has been strictly controlled by more than 70%, and NMHC has been strictly controlled by nearly 60%. Therefore, from this point of view, the reduction of VOCs emissions will be very obvious.
(2) Reduction of unorganized emissions. This project has proposed strict control requirements for unorganized emissions. From the current process control, the detection concentration of exhaust stacks is extremely low, indicating severe unorganized emissions and low capture efficiency. According to actual observations, unorganized emissions can account for more than 50% in some cases, and some enterprises even reach nearly 100% (small enterprises). Therefore, after the implementation of the control plan for unorganized emissions proposed by this standard, VOCs emissions can be reduced by 40% to 50%.
(3) Overall emission reduction benefits. Based on this survey, a considerable portion of the coatings production is still solvent-based; the offsetting ink in the oil inks also has a considerable proportion of solvent-based inks. According to the above analysis, therefore, after the implementation of this standard, it will help coatings, ink, and adhesive production enterprises reduce VOCs emissions, with an expected reduction rate of more than 40%.
The "Standard (Compilation Note)" states that in view of the characteristics of VOCs emissions from the coatings, ink, and adhesive industries, technical specifications should be formulated in the future, especially for process control methods and end-of-pipe treatment technologies, and these should be included in the design specifications to promote technological progress and guide enterprises to meet the standards
Due to the high safety requirements of the coatings, ink, and adhesive industries, there are relatively few enterprises with such treatment technologies. Therefore, it is necessary to pay close attention to safety guarantee measures. Therefore, it is recommended to implement the method of technical alliances, play the role of industry associations, and support the enterprise teams with treatment technologies.
