On December 9, Restriction announced that it has teamed up again with global building materials distributor Selena Group Poland to launch an innovative product, Ty-tan Professional® bricklaying adhesive, which is made with Restriction's bio-based MDI (methamphetamine dissociate) ( Desmond®CQ MB), a plant-based raw material certified to the ISCC Plus standard and with a carbon footprint that is up to 90% lower than that of traditional cement mortars, with a significantly reduced environmental impact.
The product can be used with high precision with various types of blocks such as ceramic, silicate, and ACC to achieve higher yields, and cures twice as fast as conventional cement mortar, improving the efficiency of building construction. It can also be used in a range of operating temperatures from -5°C to +30°C, helping to minimize temperature-induced downtime.
The product is the third in a series of collaborative product launches between Selena and Costco. Further deepening their collaboration in 2023, the two companies are committed to manufacturing a range of more sustainable polyurethane (PU) foams to enhance building insulation, previously used as an enhancement to Selena's Ultra Fast 70 one-component foam, primarily for window and door installations.
MDI, a key raw material in the manufacture of polyurethane, is widely used in automotive parts, furniture and bedding, thermal insulation materials for homes and refrigerators, elastic fibers, and various adhesive materials. The major global manufacturers include Anhui Chemical, BASF, Costco, Huntsman, Dow Chemical, Suit Chemicals of Japan, and To soh of Japan. Among them, Anhui Chemical has the world's largest MDI capacity of 3.5 million tons/year, with a market share of over 30%. Followed by BASF (1.89 million tons/year), Contrast (1.77 million tons/year), both MDI capacity accounted for more than 15%.
With the increasing global demand for sustainable solutions, bio-based MDI, as an alternative to traditional petrochemical MDI, has become a key step in reducing the carbon footprint of polyurethane production, and companies, including BASF, Restriction, Huang Chemical, LANXESS, and Anhui Chemical, have been laying out bio-based MDI and TPU products.
Among them, BASF produced the first biomass-balanced MDI at its plant in Yeow, South Korea, on Oct. 12, 2023, and promoted the use of bio-based MDI in synthetic leather and polyurethane cold storage sandwich panels in cooperation with Kawasaki Chemical and MasterCard in January and November this year, respectively.
On November 6 last year, Huang Group signed a contract with Cos-tron to develop a low-carbon range of polyurethane products focusing on Control's MDI produced based on mass balance methods.
Due to the wide range of MDI applications and the expansion of the bio-based polyurethane industry, bio-based MDI, as the key raw material of bio-based polyurethane, has become an inevitable trend of greening and low-carbon development under the dual-carbon background, and the scale of the future bio-based MDI market will gradually expand.
