16 Scientific-and-Technology Conference “Chlorine and its Derivatives 2023”
There were held on June 06 through 07, 2023 16 Scientific-and-Technology Conference “Chlorine and its Derivatives 2023” on the premises of Moscow downtown five-star hotel “Balchug”, in the hotel’s conference hall. The conference has been arranged by Association “Ruschlor" in cooperation with Moscow JSC "National Chlorine Safety Centre" with the assistance of Russian Chemists Union.
The conference was attained by in excess of a hundred of people representing more than 47 legal entities. There were the top managers of all the 11 Russian acting chlor-alkali facilities making up the RusChlor’s full membership as well as the representatives of 12 associate members in RusChlor among the attendees. There participated in the Conference a few representatives of the engineering companies, valves, fittings and fixtures vendors, the carrier companies dealing on dangerous goods.
The traditional musical greeting
was followed by the ceremonies of first handing in the Membership Cerrtificates to the following new members in Association “RusChlor”:
LLC “AVISMA”;
LLC "LORTEX ECO";
LLC "MagnetPatch";
and second awarding a commemorative medal to Chief Engineer of Public JSC "Kaustik" Mr. Dmitrij Zanin and the badge of honor “Honorable Chemist of Russia” toExecutive Director of Association “RusChlor” Mr. Boris Yagud.
notified the Conference in his speech on his Union’s activities aimed at supporting the Chlor-alkali industry facilities under the current business and political environment.
Chairman of the Board of Directors of Moscow LLC “NIKOCHEM” Mr. Michael Baranov made to the attendees a presentation aimed at outlining to them the contemporary trends noticeable in the development of the Russian Chlor-Alkali industry.
In so doing the presenter has notified the listeners on the following Gross output figures of the Chlor-alkali industry’s some basic products: chlorine, caustic soda, PVC, magnesium hydroxide. Based on the comparison made of these figures to previous years’ analogous indicators the presenter has come to the conclusion that the most recent figures account for the negative effect of the pressure of the economic sanctions. Nevertheless, the presenter has also notified the listeners on a peculiar fact that the recent Chlor-alkali industry performance parameters have turned out slightly better than the whole chemical industry’s ones.
Mr. Baranov argued that the abovementioned phenomenon had resulted from the steep rise in the prices for the Chlor-alkali industry products that had happened in the years 2021 and 2022.
Nothwithstanding the just said though, the following major problems having been faced by the industry for years have not changed yet to any considerable extent:
■ Lack of an adequate State Industrial Policy;
■ The consequential lack of such long-term contracts for the raw commodities that the commodities would be supplied in necessary amounts and at the prices that should be calculated according to a preliminary fixed formula under the contracts;
The ever rising prices for the natural monopoly services;
■ The limited production output volumes by the major production facilities imply the limited investor appetite for the projects involving the erection of a brand new production facilities or even lines given that the amount of the investment would be huge while the payback time being prohibitively long;
The loans necessary to fund a large-scale modernization project in the chlor-alkali industry are not easily available;
■ The industrial equipment wear-out rate is too high;
■ The state regulation inefficiency coupled with a superfluous (and not adapted to the Russian realia) subservience to the European both quality control standards and systems of standard documents for regulating the quality of the chemical products involving imposing the unacceptable “green” ecological requirements, standards, and notorious Reference Books on “Best Available Techniques” followed by a hasty implementation of all that without any preliminary critical examination or even discussion by either the scientific community or industrialists.
In addition to the abovesaid there have also recently surfaced the negative impact by the pandemic coupled with counteraction to the greenhouse gases generation rise involving the ecological and technological safety standards’ toughening there.
There has been also stressed in the Mr. Baranov’s report an urgent need to revive the industry-specific, multispecialty, chlorine engineering centre for both facilitating the development of and expanding the chlorine chemistry product nomenclature. That, as Mr. Baranov put it, should mitigate the current difficulties felt in accessing the foreign technologies and products, help in both maintaining and developing further the scientific research results achieved under the former Soviet State Scientific and Design Institute of the Chlor-Alkali Industry coupled with both the Pilot-Production Plant and Design Bureau as well as in creating the new generation production lines to be vertically integrated, energy efficient, and balanced out over the chemical substances’ flows so that the production lines would each function under a zero waste raw commodity processing cycle.
The listeners upheld the abovementioned idea and argued that all the production facilities of the Russian Chllor-Alkali Industry as well as almost all the companies maintaining the business relations with them were doing their best in wherever possible trying not to lose the scientific potential and technologies left from the past but such a large-scale problem was hardly possible to solve without joining the resources or creating a basic Scientific-and-Engineering Centre in the first place. The Centre could afterwards become highly instrumental in tackling such formidable tasks as development new technologies, bettering the Electrode Coatings, or lessening the consumption of energy by the production facilities.
Executive Director of Association “RusChlor” Mr. Boris Yagud has made the presentation entitled “Main lines of activities of Association ‘RusChlor”.
In so doing the presenter has first tackled the following issues of strategic character:
- representation of the interests of the chlor-alkali industry production facilities by way of participation in the governmental bodies functioning;
- further development of voluntary certification system “RusChlorCert”, the system’s both importance and future development trends;
- participation in the work of the international NGOs, trade associations, and campaigns;
- work by RusChlor under the overhauling reform in the field of the technical regulation called "Regulatory Guillotine” and a few other issues;
In the second part of his presentation Mr. Yagud made an in-depth analysis of the Chlor-Alkali production processes both domestic and global.
There were then made the following presentations there:
The design and implementation process for the chemical industry production facilities projects (LLC "DCTI 'Polikhimservis")
The platinum-group metals prospects for the future. Tendencies vs. Challenges (Public JSC “Krastsvetmet”)
The electrochemical activation: a versatile environment preservation technology (LLC “Vitold Bakhir Electro Chemical Systems & Technologies Institute”)
Digitalization of the technological safety field at a chemically hazardous production facility (LLC “IBS Software”)
Confirmation of conformity of complex technological equipment to requirements of both the Technical Regulations of the Custom Union and Federal Law No. 116-FZ (LLC “PromMash Test Engineering”)
On the practicability of revival of the Chlorine Chemical Engineering Centre (D. Mendeleyev University of Chemical Technologies of the Russian Federation; UChTRF)
On its second day the conference mostly concentrated on both the pressing problems of Safe Handling of Chlorine (this exactly wording has made up for the Mr. Yagud's presentation’s title that was the first item on the second day's agenda),
and the issues linked to both the manufacture and use of the equipment, valves, fittings, and fixtures at the Chlor-alkali production facilities. The Conference has considered the following presentations:
Bellows sealed valves offered by “Lortex Eco” (LLC "LORTEX valves manufacturing")
The import substitution technologies offered by a Russian manufacturer of the instrumentation and control equipment designed to measure the flow rates, pressure, and level under the highly corrosive environments (CJSC "EMIS")
The quickly assembled devices aimed at liquidating the leaks of chlorine (LLC "MagnetPatch")
Manufacture, development, commercialization, servicing, and verification of the gas analyzers (LLC “PROMPRIBOR-R”)
Manufacture of the equipment designed to be used in transportations of the chlorine containing or other way corrosive substances (LLC "MetallPlastMontazh”)
The corrosion-resistant constructional materials. Products crafted out of the impregnated graphite (LLC “APA-Technology”)
Modern, chemically resistant constructional materials to be used in manufacture of chlorine, alkalis, and acids (LLC “Zhenova”)
Providing for the Safety in both Loading the road / rail tankers with the liquid chlorine and Unloading it from them (LLC “Conversion-Oil”)
Intelligent electronic sealing system "BIGLOK" makes up for a modern, economical and reliable solution for the use in transportation of dangerous goods (JSC "Engineering Industrial Concern" Sentinel")
Over the course of two days, the Conference participants heard and discussed 20 reports covering the main technical and technological problems of chlorine and caustic production processes, issues of design and digitalization of technological processes, standardization and use of new equipment and valves.
Upon the receipt of a preliminary request we shall dispatch the presentations made at the Conference.