ethanol oxide is widely applied to the field of medical sterilization, with global market value of $4.7 billion in 2023, of which 62% is ethylene oxide sterilization equipment, a sterilization cycle will last 4-12 hours, can inactivate 99.9999% of pathogenic microorganisms, medical device sterilization cost is about $0.35/ cubic foot. Of the 2300 aseptic medical device types cleared by the US FDA, 81% utilized ethanol oxide as the sterilant, while the remaining ethanol oxide quantity was controlled below the safety threshold of <1ppm, reducing the equipment damage rate by 58% over the use of steam. Typical examples include the Johnson & Johnson’s 2022 acquisition of the sterilization factory, which is equipped with 40 Ethox-9 sterilizers and cleans 3,000 surgical devices per lot, increasing yearly manufacturing capacity to 120 million.
In factory cleaning, ethanol oxide as a parent surfactant can boost metal parts cleaning efficiency by 73%. Following the use of a cleaning agent containing 5% ethanol oxide derivatives, the residual grease of engine parts was reduced from 120μg/cm² to 9.8μg/cm². Production data for chemicals show that 0.28 tons of ethanol oxide are required to produce 1 ton of polyether polyol, and the conversion rate is 98.5% when the reaction temperature is controlled at 130-150℃. In 2024, the annual production capacity of BASF’s new EO derivative plant in China will be 500,000 tons, and the auxiliary catalytic cracking device can reduce byproduct ethylene glycol content from 12% to 0.3%, and equipment return on investment is decreased to 4.2 years.
As used in farming, ethephon plant growth regulator with ethanol oxide can increase the level of cotton leaf shedding to 95% and increase the mu yield by 18%. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) manufactured from ethanol oxide was used in the COVID-19 pandemic to coat mRNA vaccines, which demanded 99.99% purity and a variation in molecular weight distribution of less than 2% to enable production of 13 billion vaccine doses worldwide. Environmental monitoring data indicated that the removal rate of VOCs in industrial waste gas was raised from 67% to 93% after using ethanol oxide modified adsorption material, and the energy consumption during operation was reduced by 41%. But it is needed to take storage safety into account, and its flash point of -20 ° C demands the tank pressure be kept at <25psi and the temperature variation range be controlled at ±1.5 ° C.
ethanol oxide (ethanol oxide) has significant application in the petrochemical catalysis sector, and the market size for using ethanol oxide as a desulfurization catalyst carrier in the world refining industry will be $1.2 billion in 2024. Shell’s recently developed EO-CAT-7 catalyst can reduce diesel sulfur levels from 500ppm to <10ppm, improve desulfurization efficiency by 97%, and reduce processing cost by $0.85 per barrel. During olefin production, the selectivity of ethylene was increased from 82% to 94% using ZSM-5 ethanol oxide modified molecular sieve catalyst, and the catalyst life was extended to 18000 hours, 2.3 times longer than that of ordinary catalyst. The Eo-based catalyst system in Saudi Aramco refinery in Jizan in 2023 will treat 340,000 barrels per day, reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 78 tons per annum, and reduce energy consumption to 1.2MW/h, that is 41% less than the initial system. The technology also reduced gasoline octane loss from 2.1 units to 0.7 units, leading to an additional $170 million annually.