The development history of photoinitiator in China

Photoinitiator is the key material in the photocuring system, which is formulated with active diluent, oligomer, auxiliaries and other raw materials, and then applied to the end user. Although the amount of photoinitiator is small, it plays an important role in the photocuring system.

The development of photoinitiator began in western countries. In the past, the production of photoinitiator was monopolized by Ciba and other old European and American enterprises. With the expiration of the patent right of photoinitiator successively, the independent production of domestic enterprises developed rapidly, and the domestic production of photoinitiator developed to a certain scale at the end of the 20th century. According to the statistics of radiation curing Committee, the output of photoinitiator in China reached 33,200 tons in 2017, with a compound growth rate of 10.22% compared with 2010.

In recent years the global light initiator chain began to shift to China, on the one hand, China has now become the light initiator terminal market a variety of applications such as mobile phones, electrical appliances, circuit boards and other industries largest application market, on the other hand the key products of compound patents expire, China's rapid increase in the level of production technology overseas light initiator failed to expand capacity, Domestic photoinitiator industry began to flourish.

The development of new photocurable products and the continuous expansion of application fields provide the photoinitiator industry with inexhaustible demand promotion and good development prospects. In 2018, the market size of photoinitiator in China reached 2.552 billion yuan, of which photocurable materials accounted for 8%. With the increment of downstream application fields and the replacement of solvent-based and water-based materials by photocuring materials, it is expected that the annual compound growth rate of China's photoinitiator market will reach 20% in the next few years and reach 15.589 billion yuan by 2028.