Hanwha Chemical President Kim Chang-beom

hanwha Chemical has decided to mass produce an eco-friendly plasticizer that do not cause harm to human body. A plasticizer is added to rubbers and resins to impart flexibility, workability, or strechability. 

Hanwha Chemical’s third plant at the Ulsan Petrochemical Industrial Complex will produce “ECO-DEHCH,” a phthalate-free plasticizer, starting June, the company said on May 31. The plant will have an annual ECO-DEHCH production capacity of 15,000 tons. A plasticizer containing phthalate suspected of doing harm to the human body is banned from being used for wallpapers, flooring materials and toys. 

Hanwha Chemical has succeeded in developing the phthalate-free plasticizer by employing an hydrogen-added technology after eight years of research. Globally, BASF and Evonik produce phthalate-free plasticizers by employing an hydrogen-added technology. In 2014, the ECO-DEHCH obtained a new technology certificate from the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards (KATS). The product passed a safety examination by the U.S. Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last year. The annual value of the eco-friendly plasticizer market is estimated at 1.5 trillion won with an annual average growth rate of more than 6 percent.

Hanwha Chemcial’s mass production of the ECO-DEHCH is in line with Hanwha Chemical President Kim Chang-beom’s technology management tenets stressing the development of value-added products. He called for finding breakthroughs to cope with a glut in petrochemicals, caused by China, by developing value-added products. Kim did not spare efforts to invest for the development of value-added products by establishing research institutes for joint development of new technology with Seoul National University and KAIST. 

Hanwha Chemical plans to accelerate efforts to diversify its business portfolios with a focus on such advanced technooogyk highly profit-taking, valued-added products as Chlorinated Polyvinyl Chloride and ECO-DEHCH, a company official said.  

Hanwha Chemical Posts 37.6% Jump in Operating Profit in 1st Qtr. 

Hanwha Chemical chalked up 2,191.3 billion won in sales and 196.6 billion won in operating profit in the first quarter of 2017. The figures represent a 37.6 percent surge in operating profit and a 1.3 percent rise in sales over the same period of last year. 

The company’s charming business performance is led by the price stability of such mainstay products as polyethylene and polvinyl chroride (PVC) and particularly, a surge of international prices of sodium hydroxide and Toluene Diisocyanate (TDI). Sodium hydroxide has seen it global prices jump more than 50 percent compared to the same period of last year due to a decline in global production, particularly caused by the strengthening of environmental restrictions by China, the global No. 1 producer. TDI prices have also witnessed a more than 140 percent surge due to the delayed normal operation of global players. 

A view of Hanwha Chemical’s plant in Ulsan. (Photos: Hanwha Chemical)

Materials without endocrine-disrupting chemicals, developed by Hanwha Chemical.