Panoramic Analysis: Market Pattern, Industrial Chain Structure and Melt Crystallization Technology Innovation
As a simple aromatic carboxylic acid, benzoic acid has become a key intermediate and additive in the global industrial system due to its antiseptic and antibacterial properties, widely used in food and beverage, pharmaceutical and pesticide, plastic resin, personal care and other fields. This article comprehensively analyzes the development context and technical breakthrough direction of the benzoic acid industry from six dimensions: global market pattern, industrial driving forces and opportunities, upstream and downstream industrial chain, technical bottlenecks, core production processes, and melt crystallization technology innovation.
The global benzoic acid market shows a steady growth trend, expected to increase from 286,500 tons in 2024 to 357,300 tons in 2028, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 5.7%.
The demand for preservatives (such as sodium/potassium benzoate) in the food and beverage industry continues to rise, inhibiting molds and yeasts to ensure product shelf life.
As a key intermediate for antibiotics, diuretics, sedatives and other drugs, the development of the pharmaceutical industry drives the demand growth for benzoic acid.
The emerging demand for antiseptic and antibacterial additives in the feed industry has become a new driving force for market growth.
Note: With China as the core, Asia leads capacity expansion relying on cost and industrial chain advantages; Europe focuses on high-end products, while North America emphasizes high-purity demand.
Note: The market shows oligopolistic characteristics. Lanxess and Wuhan Organic jointly control over 75% of the market share, and technical barriers and scale effects form high entry barriers.
The benzoic acid industrial chain presents a clear context of "petrochemical industry - fine processing - diversified applications". Upstream raw materials determine the cost foundation, midstream technology differentiation reshapes the competition pattern, and downstream application expansion releases market value.
The mainstream process is toluene liquid-phase air oxidation (cobalt/manganese catalyst) with mature technology. The price and supply stability of toluene directly determine the production cost.
Prepared by decarboxylation of phthalic anhydride, it has obvious economic and scale disadvantages and low application proportion.
Toluene liquid-phase oxidation: high energy consumption, many by-products, requiring supporting high-energy consumption distillation purification.
Melt crystallization purification: purity up to 99.99%, energy consumption only 10%-30% of traditional distillation, obtaining high product premium.
The production of benzoic acid is transforming from "extensive synthesis" to "precision purification". Traditional processes have three core bottlenecks, restricting industrial quality improvement and cost reduction:
High conversion rate, good selectivity, economic cost, and it is the current mainstream industrial process; however, the reaction process is complex, and a small amount of by-products such as benzaldehyde and benzyl alcohol will be generated, requiring subsequent purification treatment.
Utilizing the huge difference in solubility of benzoic acid in hot water and cold water (or other solvents), impurities are removed through the process of "dissolution → decolorization → filtration → cooling crystallization → centrifugal separation → drying".
Melt crystallization technology does not rely on any solvent, and realizes purification by utilizing the solid-liquid phase equilibrium difference of benzoic acid near its melting point. The core process is as follows:
Stably producing benzoic acid with a purity of ≥99.9%, which is much higher than the 99.5%-99.8% of traditional recrystallization, meeting the strict requirements of electronic chemicals, high-end pharmaceuticals, etc.
Yield is nearly 100% (no solvent dissolution loss), comprehensive energy consumption is reduced by 30%-50%, zero wastewater generation, and only a small amount of high-impurity residual liquid needs to be treated.
The equipment supports continuous/semi-continuous operation, with high automation and stable production. The product quality consistency is good, reducing human intervention and operation deviation.
