Hydroxyethyl methacrylate PHEMA is a medical polymer material with good market prospect

Hydroxyethyl methacrylate PHEMA is a medical polymer material with good future market prospect

　　Polyhydroxyethyl methacrylate, abbreviated as PHEMA, is a homopolymer or copolymer of hydroxyethyl methacrylate. The appearance of hydroxyethyl methacrylate is colorless and transparent liquid, with good fluidity and excellent optical properties, miscible with water and soluble in many organic solvents. Hydroxyethyl methacrylate is a hydrophilic polymer with water absorption up to about 40% of its weight. It can be widely used in medical polymer materials, chemical reagents, adhesives, resin modifiers, coating modifiers, rubber modifiers, fiber finishing agents and other fields.
　　Medical polymer materials are the main application market of hydroxyethyl methacrylate. Hydroxyethyl methacrylate can be used to manufacture contact lenses, which is one of the main materials for producing contact lenses that can be worn for a long time due to its excellent optical properties, good bioaffinity, high water content, high softness, and good breathability. Affected by the increasing pressure of work and study, excessive use of electronic products and other factors, the number of myopia patients in China is huge, has exceeded 600 million people, so the size of China's contact lens market continues to expand, by 2020 has reached more than 18 billion yuan, favorable to the development of China's polyhydroxyethyl methacrylate industry.
　　Hydroxyethyl methacrylate is also an important material for optical lens pillar, and the optical lens pillar and peripheral stent are the two major components of artificial cornea. Hydroxyethyl methacrylate has excellent light transmission, good refractive index, high water content, and certain permeability to gas, electrolytes, glucose, etc. It is suitable for manufacturing artificial cornea and is the earliest artificial cornea material used. The number of corneal blindness in China is over 4 million and still growing, the demand for corneal transplantation is rising, and the market space for artificial cornea is large, which can reach $16 to $20 billion, bringing a broad development space for the industry of hydroxyethyl methacrylate.
　　According to the report "2021-2025 Hydroxyethyl Methacrylate (PHEMA) Industry Deep Market Research and Investment Strategy Recommendations Report" released by the NewSI Industry Research Center, at this stage, Japan, the United States, Germany, China and other countries have the capacity of mass production of hydroxyethyl methacrylate, and the main manufacturers are Japan Mitsubishi Chemical, Japan Asahi Kasei, Germany Evonik, the United States Dow Chemical, etc. Foreign enterprises, as well as Shanghai Huayi, Dongming Changshengyuan, Jiangsu Sanmu, Chizhou Fangda and other domestic enterprises. Compared with Japanese enterprises, China's polymethyl methacrylate industry is deficient in technology, mainly in the production of low-end products, and the demand for high-end products is more dependent on foreign countries. In the future, the structure of China's polymethyl methacrylate industry needs to be continuously optimized.



　　New thinking industry analysts said, polyhydroxyethyl methacrylate in the field of medical polymer materials in high demand, mainly used to produce contact lenses and artificial cornea. China's contact lens market is large, with the national requirements for aesthetic improvement, the contact lens market shows rapid growth; China's technology in the field of artificial cornea continues to break through, the domestic artificial cornea will soon be mass production for clinical use, the future market size will expand rapidly. In general, the downstream industry is developing well, which is favorable to the development of China's polyhydroxyethyl methacrylate industry, but at this stage, the productivity of high-end polyhydroxyethyl methacrylate in China is still insufficient, and there is still more room for progress in the future.