China's industrial cleaning agent development trend

Industrial Cleaning Agent Products (1) General Overview Over the past 10 years, the world's cleaning industry has developed rapidly. In developed countries such as Europe and the United States, cleanliness has become a part of improving people's quality of life; The continuous improvement of cleaning technology and cleaning agent formulations also provides the necessary conditions for the expansion of its market space. At present, there are about 8,000 cleaning suppliers in the world, of which developed countries such as Europe, America and Japan account for two-thirds, with an annual output value of more than 50 billion US dollars, but only about 5% of these 8,000 international companies have entered the Chinese market (data from 2010). There are about 4,000 manufacturers, distributors and agents of cleaning products in China, including more than 1,000 production enterprises and about 100 large-scale enterprises; There are 5 million end-users of cleaning products for industrial and commercial use, not counting the cleaning products used by hundreds of millions of ordinary citizens; The detergent industry, like the information, biology, materials and other industries, is a sunrise industry with great development potential in China. With the rapid progress of China's comprehensive construction of a moderately prosperous society, the market demand for industrial cleaning agents and clean technology products will continue to grow, and the market prospect is very optimistic. At present, there are more than 3 million employees in this industry in China, and the total value of the industrial cleaning agent industry is close to 20 billion yuan, and it is growing rapidly at an annual rate of about 25%. The field of general industrial cleaning agents will develop in the direction of branding, specialization and standardization, and some high-efficiency special cleaning agents have been promoted. In the future, live cleaning and tall building cleaning will become a bright spot. From 2004 to 2024, the production and sales of cleaning agents and cleaning equipment in China will grow at a rapid rate of 30% to 50% per year (the latest data is not available, but personal estimates are not available). Domestic demand continues to expand, including the phase-out of ODS (ozone-depleting substances such as perchlorofluorocarbons (perchlorofluorocarbons, perbromofluorocarbons and other substances that are produced and used in large quantities in industry) and the implementation of ISO14000 systems, and the market for industrial cleaning agents is huge in the long term. At present, from the breadth of the market, cleaning has been widely recognized by the society, the market field from petroleum, chemical, energy, electric power to metallurgy, construction, machinery and electronics, post and telecommunications, transportation, textile printing, nuclear industry, light industry and other industries, from enterprises to families, from complete sets of equipment to electronic components need cleaning services, but different industries attach importance to cleaning, cleaning purposes and the degree of dependence on the cleaning industry is different.

(2) Product introduction

1. Concept: Baidu Encyclopedia's definition of environmentally friendly cleaning agent is: a substance formulated by surfactants (such as sodium alkylbenzene sulfonate, sodium fatty alcohol sulfate) and various additives (such as sodium tripolyphosphate) and auxiliaries, which can change the surface activity of water and improve the decontamination and descaling effect when washing the surface dirt of objects. Compared with general cleaning agents, the active agents and various additives contained in environmental cleaning agents can be biodegraded or have little pollution to the environment, so they are called environmentally friendly cleaning agents, also known as environmental protection cleaning agents. According to the existing international standards (OECD, ISO and European standard EN), there are many different research methods, and it usually takes more than 28 days for a substance to finally degrade by 60% to 70% and be converted to carbon dioxide and water, depending on the research method. Under these conditions, the organic substance can be considered degradable.

2. Overview of various cleaning agents: In industrial and mining enterprises, the cleaning agents being used are mainly divided into two categories, one is the aqueous solution of soda ash, hydrochloric acid, etc., or isopropanol, ethanol, trichloroethylene, kerosene and other solvents; The other is a complex of surfactants, additives and solvents, which have good cleaning effect and application convenience, and are easy to learn and master the use skills, such as the industry's well-known 664 degreaser and other industrial cleaning agent products. There are many names (or common names) of cleaning agents, and cleaning is a spec

ial industry that intersects with many disciplines and has complex and diverse products, which can be roughly divided into three categories: first, engineering cleaning of heat exchangers and chemical pipelines; the second is the cleaning in the process turnover process of industrial and mining enterprises, such as metal parts cleaning, optical parts cleaning, and surface treatment cleaning; The third is the cleaning of equipment repair and maintenance, such as parts cleaning in automobile repair shops, carburetor cleaning agents, electrical cleaning agents, ship cleaning agents, etc. Usually, the name of the industrialcleaning room includes the process characteristics of various industries, for example: the surface treatment industry is called degreasing agent, pretreatment agent; The semiconductor industry calls it a detergent; The daily chemical industry is called detergent; For industrial cleaning agents, according to the cleanliness after cleaning, it can be divided into ordinary cleaning, precision cleaning (such as bearings, auto parts, etc.) and ultra-precision cleaning of electronic parts; Refer to the diagram below to understand its application in various industries. Examples of environmentally friendly cleaners: terpenes, diesters, glycol ethers, N-methylpyrrolidone, or other hydrocarbons, often with surfactants, are typical of semi-aqueous cleaners that replace solvent-based cleaners.

Market analysis of the cleaning agent industry

 (1) Brief analysis of domestic and foreign industrial cleaning agent market: analysis of market demand opportunities in Greater China, Japan and South Korea, ASEAN, North America, the European Union, the Middle East, South America and Africa (omitted) (2) According to incomplete statistics, in 2008, the market value of China's I&I industry exceeded 23 billion yuan, in a wide variety of cleaning agent products, industrial cleaning accounted for 34%, hotels, guest rooms, catering cleaning accounted for 18%, public places accounted for 37%, food and beverage processing industry cleaning accounted for 8%, others accounted for 3%. At present, there are more than 1,000 domestic production enterprises and about 100 large-scale enterprises. It is difficult to see the authoritative statistical data ...... the total volume and market share of the domestic industrial cleaning agent market. PMQ estimates that there are about 4,000 manufacturers, distributors and agents of cleaning products in China, and 2 million end-users of cleaning products for industrial and commercial use. The output value of the industrial cleaning detergent industry is about 50 billion yuan, the investment of foreign manufacturers in China is currently about 3 billion yuan, and the potential annual demand for professional cleaning in China is about 300 billion yuan. Introduction to industrial cleaning and the application of China's industrial cleaning agent industry: The cleaning involved in the labor process of industrial production belongs to the category of industrial cleaning. Food industry, textile industry, paper industry, printing industry, petroleum processing industry, transportation industry, electric power industry, metal processing industry, machinery industry, automobile manufacturing, instrumentation, electronic industry, post and telecommunications, household appliances, medical instruments, optical products, military equipment, aerospace, atomic energy industry, etc. Industrial cleaning can generally be classified in the following three ways: according to the different cleaning accuracy requirements, it is mainly divided into three categories: general industrial cleaning, precision industrial cleaning and ultra-precision industrial cleaning.

(1) General industrial cleaning: such as boilers, pipelines, petrochemical equipment, etc., usually use acid, alkali and some active substances as cleaning agents, similar to civil cleaning, usually with the naked eye invisible dirt as the standard, such as cars, trains, planes, ships and other surface cleaning, building walls, doors and windows, glass, etc.; Oil pipelines, oil transportation, oil storage tanks, equipment pipelines, boilers, central air conditioning, equipment maintenance and cleaning, etc.

(2) Precision industrial cleaning: including the cleaning of various products in the processing and production process, the cleaning of various materials and equipment surfaces, etc., which is characterized by the removal of tiny dirt particles; In many processing industries, some intermediate processes need to be cleaned before the next process, and some of the final products need to be cleaned again, such as electroplating and painting of metal, plastic parts, and glass.

 (3) Ultra-precision cleaning: including ultra-precision cleaning of mechanical parts, electronic components, optical components, etc. in the process of precision industrial production, with the purpose of removing very small dirt particles. At present, microelectronics technology has developed to the level of nanotechnology, and a 90-nanometer production line is under construction. Wavelength division multiplexing optoelectronic devices (DWDMs) used in a large number of communication equipment, the resolution to accurately distinguish and identify different wavelengths of light, such products should be cleaned almost perfectly, and the diameter of residual dirt should be about 0.1nm, which is difficult to observe with ordinary electron microscopes. Ultra-precision industrial cleaning must be carried out in a super-clean environment, requiring the use of ultra-high purity cleaning agents and DI water (deionized water), as well as advanced cleaning equipment. Except for some simple equipment, there are currently no enterprises in China that can provide such technology and equipment, and they basically rely on imported .......

(3) Industry application

 1. Electronic information: For a long time, the main service object of industrial cleaning agents in development zones across the country is the electronic information industry. Most of the new projects and development focus are electronic products, with the transfer of foreign enterprises to the production and processing base to the country, there will be a large number of electronic factories and production lines to build or expand, requiring a large number of industrial cleaning agents and cleaning equipment, ultra-precision industrial cleaning equipment and the proportion of high value-added cleaning agents is gradually increasing. Among them, the key product areas include: communication products, computers and components, semiconductors, liquid crystals and optoelectronic products.

2. Automobile: The huge market demand has promoted the rapid development of China's automobile industry, and now the world's automobile design and manufacturers are eager to invest in China, which is in stark contrast to the recession of the automobile market in other parts of the world. Some auto parts manufacturers have also entered China in large numbers to build wholly-owned or joint ventures. The production process of automobiles and parts generally requires precision cleaning, which puts forward new requirements for cleaning agents and cleaning agent technology and equipment, and the technical content and added value of cleaning agents are very high. Transportation vehicle cleaners are used to clean trucks, automobiles, planes, trains, and ships, typically using high-pressure water spray and mechanical brushing. Adsorption foams are important for large vehicle surface cleaning, truck and aircraft surface cleaning, where dirt can be oil, grease, clay, carbon, guano and tree sap.

 3. Medical devices: Medical devices such as syringes, surgical knives, biochips, etc. not only need to be precision cleaned during the production process, but also need to pass human experiments. The injection needle belongs to the deep fine space cleaning, which is very difficult, generally used Freon cleaning, and finally Freon is used as a dispersant, and the surface of the needle is evenly covered with a layer of silicone oil to reduce the pain when the needle pierces the skin. The controlled use of CFC-113 and the reduction of market consumption have made more than 100 manufacturers of such industrial cleaning agents across the country face an existential crisis. So far, there is no ideal cleaning agent and supporting technical equipment to replace it, and the time is not far from completely discontinuing the use of CFC-113. There is an urgent need for experienced and powerful detergent R&D units to solve this problem as soon as possible and produce alternative detergents and technical equipment in line with China's national conditions, and its market prospects will be very attractive. At present, CFC-113 can no longer be purchased at will, and the price is several times higher than before.

 4. Optical products: The market demand for various optical products and components, such as camera lenses, large-screen rear projection TV lenses, slide projectors, projector lenses, etc., is still strong, and these optical products have quite high technical requirements for cleaning agents and cleaning technical equipment. Cleaning agents and technologies suitable for optical cleaning will obtain lucrative economic benefits and a large market share.

 5. Small equipment: At present, there are enterprises in China with an annual consumption of less than 3 tons of cleaning agent, that is, about 6,000 - 20,000 small consumers of cleaning agent; These companies generally do not have cleaning equipment, many companies use Freon hand washing or just simple equipment, and the possible alternative cleaning agents are either too expensive, or there are some technical problems that require special equipment; If we can develop alternative cleaning agent products with low solvent consumption, low cost and wide range of applications, it will be widely welcomed by these users, and its market prospect is very impressive.

6. Food processing: Cleaning agents are used to remove grease and protein dirt from dairy factories, meat processing plants, ovens, canning factories and beverage factories.

The future development trend of industrial cleaning agents: industrial cleaning technology has made great progress, successfully solved many practical problems in production practice, but in order to protect the environment and groundwater, prevent the expansion of the ozone layer hole, and meet the needs of human survival and development, by 2010 at the latest, ODS cleaning agents that once occupied an important position will be withdrawn from the market, and people's demand for environmentally friendly green pollution-free industrial cleaning agents is becoming more and more urgent, which further promotes the technical requirements and market development of industrial cleaning agents. Chemical cleaning technology will develop in the direction of environmental protection, functional, refinement and integration. With the progress of fine organic synthesis technology, biotechnology and detection technology, chemical cleaning agents will develop in the direction of molecular design, and green and environmentally friendly chemical cleaning agents with biodegradation ability and enzyme catalysis will be synthesized; Weakly acidic or neutral organic compounds will replace strong acids and bases; Straight-chain organic compounds and plant extracts will replace aromatic compounds; Phosphorus-free and fluorine-free cleaners will replace phosphorus-containing fluoride cleaners; Water-based cleaners will replace solvent-based and emulsion-based cleaners; Biodegradable and environmentally friendly cleaners will replace polluting cleaners that are difficult to decompose; All kinds of fool-type cleaning agents are highly functional and easy to operate. In terms of cleaning additives, more attention is paid to the role of catalysts, accelerators and strippers to make them non-toxic and low-dose, while corrosion inhibitors need to develop special high-efficiency corrosion inhibitors under special conditions. Cleaning has always been one of the main sources of waste liquid discharge in industrial and mining enterprises, and the current energy conservation and emission reduction have put forward additional requirements for it.

Common claims in the industry regarding cleaning agents are as follows:

 A. Replace oil with water to clean, reduce the use of solvents such as kerosene and gasoline, reduce cleaning costs, reduce oily solvent emissions, and improve the environment of the cleaning section;

 B. Reduce the temperature of the cleaning process, improve the cleaning ability of the cleaning agent, reduce the concentration of the cleaning agent (or the frequency of liquid change), and achieve energy saving and emission reduction;

 C. Replace the refractory alkylphenol ethoxylate surfactant with plant-based surfactant (NP, OP, etc. have their alternative technologies) to improve the biodegradability of the cleaning agent;

D. Control the pH value of the cleaning agent within the neutral range, slow down the corrosion of the cleaning agent to the cleaning object, reduce the damage to the environment, and even omit the wastewater treatment equipment;

E. Reduce or replace the use of halogenated hydrocarbons (chloroform, dichloromethane, etc., with a consumption of about 50,000 t/a) to reduce the damage to the ozone layer (ODS);

 F. Use environmentally friendly solvents with low toxicity to improve the working environment and avoid cumulative poisoning.

G. The basic qualities of excellent cleaning agents include the anti-corrosion and anti-rust ability of the substrate, cleaning ability, cleaning speed, cleaning staying power, bright effect, low foaming, low odor, low harm to the human body, low toxicity, mild cleaning conditions, no residue after cleaning, no by-products during cleaning, can be cleaned at room temperature, environmental protection and degradable, compared with other cleaning agents, the amount of cleaning is small, but the cleaning power and cleaning staying power are the same, and there are selling points in terms of cost saving, etc., which are the development direction of high-quality cleaning agents. In short, industrial cleaning agents are developing in the direction of multi-functional, efficient, low-toxicity and easily biodegradable, and industrial cleaning tends to be standardized, professional and branded services.

Introduction and application of cleaning agent products: cleaning agents are mainly used in industrial repair and maintenance, focusing on equipment and operating environment for upstream oil exploitation; food and medical industry; public transportation, aviation; automotive repair and manufacturing; heavy industry machine repair industry; petroleum refining industry; maintenance of machine repair workshops and operating environments in various industries; Water treatment; abrasives industry; steel industry; Labor insurance, etc.

Benchmarking and development

1. The product homogenization problem of domestic industrial cleaning agents is serious: industrial cleaning agents, as auxiliary products in the production process, are very typical general-purpose industrial products. Judging from the current production of cleaning agents in China, the formulas of many products of the same type are basically similar, the degree of product homogeneity is high, and there is a lack of substantial differences. This is because, on the one hand, most manufacturers of industrial cleaning agents follow a common cleaning agent formulation. HersClean detergent has leading performance, strong cleaning power, green environmental protection and degradability, which is incomparable with domestic detergents......

 2. The contradiction between the special and general use of industrial cleaning agents: with the general improvement of production level, there are more and more specialized production equipment and facilities. Under the current technical conditions, there is no cleaning agent that can be used in a wide range of applications and does not affect its effectiveness. Objectively speaking, due to the different manufacturing materials, structures, uses, and dirt generated by different equipment, the effect of using special cleaning agents in a targeted manner will be better. HersClean cleaner is a single product that effectively removes all kinds of stains and has a good balance of specificity and versatility.

3. The sales channel of domestic industrial cleaning agents is single, and the market radius is small: at present, the product sales of domestic cleaning agent manufacturers mainly adopt the agency method. For most users of industrial cleaning agents, cleaning agents are only one of the auxiliary materials in the production process, and the proportion of both the amount used and the purchase amount is small, so it is rare to purchase industrial cleaning agents separately. Therefore, it is often purchased from a comprehensive chemical product sales or trading company along with other similar chemical products. Of course, some large-scale manufacturers with strong strength, or manufacturers specializing in a certain professional field, will also set up branches or offices in areas where customers are concentrated to sell directly to customers. This has led to a common phenomenon, that is, most industrial cleaning agent manufacturers have a small market radius, and their customers are often concentrated in the cities and surrounding areas, and their penetration ability to the outside world is weak.

4. The promotion of industrial cleaning agents is weak: the marketing and promotion level of domestic products is not high, and the use of industrial products is for enterprise users rather than individual consumers, which increases the difficulty of promotion.

Establish a supply chain cooperative relationship by virtue of upstream and downstream integration: The so-called supply chain cooperative relationship refers to the agreement relationship between suppliers and manufacturers to share information, share risks and make profits within a certain period of time; With the improvement of production technology, the cleaning and related services of various equipment are becoming more and more abundant and professional.

Overview of various cleaning agents: In industrial and mining enterprises, the cleaning agents being used are mainly divided into two categories, one is the aqueous solution of soda ash, hydrochloric acid, etc., or solvents such as isopropanol, ethanol, trichloroethylene, kerosene, etc.; The other is a complex of surfactants, additives and solvents, which have good cleaning effect and application convenience, and are easy to learn and master the use skills, such as the industry's well-known 664 degreaser and other industrial cleaning agent products. There are many names (or common names) of cleaning agents, and cleaning is a special industry that intersects with many disciplines and has complex and diverse products, which can be roughly divided into three categories: one is the engineering cleaning of heat exchangers and chemical pipelines; the second is the cleaning in the process turnover process of industrial and mining enterprises, such as metal parts cleaning, optical parts cleaning, and surface treatment cleaning; The third is the cleaning of equipment repair and maintenance, such as parts cleaning in automobile repair shops, carburetor cleaning agents, electrical cleaning agents, ship cleaning agents, etc. Usually, the name of the industrial cleaning room includes the process characteristics of various industries, for example: the surface treatment industry is called degreasing agent, pretreatment agent; The semiconductor industry calls it a detergent; The daily chemical industry is called detergent; For industrial cleaning agents, according to the cleanliness after cleaning, it can be divided into ordinary cleaning, precision cleaning (such as bearings, auto parts, etc.) and ultra-precision cleaning of electronic parts; Refer to the diagram below to understand its application in various industries.

Domestic substitution: new market opportunities for semiconductor cleaning agents as high-tech products Semiconductor cleaning agent product principle According to the different cleaning media, the current semiconductor cleaning technology is mainly divided into two process routes: wet cleaning and dry cleaning. Wet cleaning is based on different process requirements, using specific chemical solutions and deionized water to clean the surface of the wafer without damage, so as to remove particles, natural oxide layer, organic matter, metal pollution, sacrificial layer, polishing residue and other substances in the wafer manufacturing process, and auxiliary technologies such as ultrasonic, heating, and vacuum can be used at the same time; Dry cleaning refers to the cleaning technology without the use of chemical solvents, mainly including plasma cleaning, supercritical vapor phase cleaning, beam cleaning and other technologies. At present, wet cleaning is the mainstream cleaning technology route, accounting for more than 90% of the number of cleaning steps in chip manufacturing.

Technical barriers: The problem with the solution method is that it is easy to cause cross-contamination between wafers. Advanced processes are more sensitive to impurities, making efficient cleaning of small-sized contaminants more difficult. The main solution is to add cleaning steps, which will make wafer cleaning more complex, important, and challenging.

According to the data of Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute, the global semiconductor cleaning equipment market size will be 4.9 billion US dollars in 2020, accounting for about 10% of the overall semiconductor equipment market size, and will maintain stable growth, reaching 6.7 billion US dollars by 2025, with an average annual growth rate of 6.8%. According to SEMI data, the global semiconductor cleaning equipment market size was $2.6 billion in 2015 and is expected to reach $3.7 billion in 2020, with a compound growth rate of 7%. We expect that the annual market space of wet cleaning equipment in Chinese mainland will be 1.5 - 2 billion US dollars, and the localization rate of cleaning machines will reach 40% - 50% by 2023, that is, the market space of domestic equipment will be 4 billion - 7 billion yuan; And it is expected that trough and monolithic cleaning equipment for 12-inch wafers will be the main increment of the market in the future.

Domestic substitution of semiconductor equipment is the trend of the times, and domestic equipment manufacturers will benefit from the increase in the proportion of equipment from domestic manufacturers. In the context of Sino-US economic and trade frictions, promoting the independent and controllable semiconductor supply chain is a historic opportunity for domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturers. At present, the overall localization rate of China's semiconductor equipment is only about 13%, and the localization rate of the company's gluing and cleaning equipment industry is 4% and 20% respectively, of which Xinyuan Micro is the only domestic manufacturer of gluing and developing equipment. The increase in the proportion of domestic equipment in the equipment of domestic manufacturers will also bring huge growth space. The growth of terminal demand coupled with the trend of localization of integrated circuit manufacturing has led to an increase in demand for semiconductor equipment. In recent years, with the development of emerging industries such as 5G, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and automotive electronics, the demand for semiconductors such as MEMS, compounds, MiniLED chips, and advanced packaging has grown rapidly, which has also driven the growth of demand for semiconductor special equipment. With the transfer of semiconductor production capacity and the increase in the overall market demand for domestic semiconductors, the investment in the semiconductor industry in Chinese mainland continues to grow, and the sales scale continues to expand.

Current situation and challenges of domestic substitution of semiconductor cleaning agents

In the context of the rapid development of the semiconductor industry, the domestic substitution of semiconductor cleaning agents has become an area of great concern. At present, although the proportion of domestic equipment in domestic semiconductor equipment has increased, it still faces many challenges.

From the perspective of market size, the global semiconductor cleaning equipment market continues to grow, which provides a certain market space for domestic substitution. However, in terms of technology, the complexity of semiconductor cleaning technology, especially the solution method in wet cleaning, which is easy to cause wafer cross-contamination and other problems, is a technical barrier faced by domestic substitution. For example, advanced processes are more sensitive to impurities, making it more complex to efficiently clean small contaminants and requiring additional cleaning steps.

The overall localization rate of domestic semiconductor equipment is only about 13%, and the localization rate of the cleaning equipment industry is 20%, which shows that there is still a lot of room for development in domestic substitution. Although the growth of terminal demand and the localization trend of integrated circuit manufacturing links have led to the increase in demand for semiconductor equipment, such as 5G, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, automotive electronics and other emerging industries have driven the growth of demand for semiconductor special equipment, but domestic semiconductor cleaning agents need to overcome many problems such as technology and quality stability in order to achieve larger-scale substitution.

In addition, there are some common problems in domestic industrial cleaning agents, such as serious product homogenization, single sales channels, small market radius and weak promotion methods. These problems may also have an impact in the process of domestic substitution of semiconductor cleaning agents. For example, product homogenization can lead to a lack of unique competitive advantages in the highly competitive semiconductor cleaner market; A single sales channel may limit the market coverage of the product; Weak promotion methods may affect the visibility and acceptance of the product in the market.

To sum up, although the domestic substitution of semiconductor cleaning agents is facing a historic opportunity, in order to achieve large-scale substitution, efforts need to be made in technological innovation, improving sales channels, strengthening marketing and other aspects to enhance the competitiveness of products and meet the needs of the rapid development of the domestic semiconductor industry.