3 ms·

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/gujarats-bolt-from-blue-leaves-global-paint-makers-in-red/articleshow/87196319.cms https://timesofindia.india

by vitus 5y ago

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/gujarats-bolt-from-blue-leaves-global-paint-makers-in-red/articleshow/87196319.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/gujarats-... seems like it fills in several missing details that other commenters have asked about (what is it about blue? is this more than just a single paintmaker in the Netherlands?). (I have my own gripes about that website, like how it tries to prevent copy-pasting via JS, or that it links to arbitrary phrases that aren't common topics or other news articles like you'd expect. But at least it has more context about this situation.) > To put things in perspective, an estimated 59% of the annual 1.1 lakh tonne of global supply of blue pigment comes from Gujarat (India's share is 82%). > However, pigment manufacturers - small and large - in the state have been forced to reduce production by 25-50% due to the surge in prices of raw materials, their unavailability and working capital issues. > Rising energy costs - coal and crude - have pushed up prices of raw materials such as phthalic anhydride, cuprous chloride and urea. These are used to manufacture CPC Blue (Copper phthalocyanine blue) crude, a key ingredient of pigment blue, which in turn goes into the making of various shades of blue paints.

joecool1029 5y ago
Wonder if the new blue pigment, YInMn blue will start to replace some of the older pigments sorta like the NAND industry shift from planar NAND V-NAND, or if it's remaining stupidly expensive still. Discussion from 9 months ago on HN about the new blue (top comment was interesting on pigment pricing): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25807199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25807199
- runnerup 5y ago
  No. Raw materials of YInMn will never be cheap enough to compete with phthalo blue. Chemical formula for phthalo blue is C32 H16 Cu N8 Of these, everything is super cheap and only Cu (Copper) really has any substantial cost. 1 kg of Copper (15.7 moles) is $10. 1 kg of hydrocarbons (~9 moles, Octane) is...about $0.48 at a US gas pump. Chemical formula for YInMn blue is (loosely) Y In0.8 Mn0.2 O3 Of these, everything is super expensive and only the "O" (oxygen) is relatively cheap. 1 kg of Indium (8.7 moles) is over $600. Doing some dimensional analysis with additional hidden molecular weights, you can make 1 kg (1.75 moles) of phthalo blue with less than $1-2 of raw materials. Currently the price of raw phthalo blue pigment is about $6 in bulk, so we can assume that processing costs about $4-5 per kg (65-80%), and the $1-2 of raw materials makes up 20-35%. However, just the indium in 1kg (4.17 moles) of YInMn blue will cost you $275. Now, this is twice as many moles vs phthalo blue so assuming (bad assumption) that you need roughly the same number of pigment molecules for visual perception you could get the equivalent "deepness" as 1kg of phthalo blue with half the weight of pigment ($140). But even if your Yttrium and Manganese were completely free, and processing cost you $0.00 per kilogram....you'd still be 10 times what the price of phthalo blue is in the current shortage! Yttrium is $34/kg btw, so you'll need about $12 of this to make 1kg of YInMn. Manganese is $2/kg and you'll only need about $0.10 of manganese to make 1kg of YInMn.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

by vitus 5y ago

joecool1029 5y ago

Wonder if the new blue pigment, YInMn blue will start to replace some of the older pigments sorta like the NAND industry shift from planar NAND V-NAND, or if it's remaining stupidly expensive still. Discussion from 9 months ago on HN about the new blue (top comment was interesting on pigment pricing): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25807199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25807199

runnerup 5y ago
No. Raw materials of YInMn will never be cheap enough to compete with phthalo blue. Chemical formula for phthalo blue is C32 H16 Cu N8 Of these, everything is super cheap and only Cu (Copper) really has any substantial cost. 1 kg of Copper (15.7 moles) is $10. 1 kg of hydrocarbons (~9 moles, Octane) is...about $0.48 at a US gas pump. Chemical formula for YInMn blue is (loosely) Y In0.8 Mn0.2 O3 Of these, everything is super expensive and only the "O" (oxygen) is relatively cheap. 1 kg of Indium (8.7 moles) is over $600. Doing some dimensional analysis with additional hidden molecular weights, you can make 1 kg (1.75 moles) of phthalo blue with less than $1-2 of raw materials. Currently the price of raw phthalo blue pigment is about $6 in bulk, so we can assume that processing costs about $4-5 per kg (65-80%), and the $1-2 of raw materials makes up 20-35%. However, just the indium in 1kg (4.17 moles) of YInMn blue will cost you $275. Now, this is twice as many moles vs phthalo blue so assuming (bad assumption) that you need roughly the same number of pigment molecules for visual perception you could get the equivalent "deepness" as 1kg of phthalo blue with half the weight of pigment ($140). But even if your Yttrium and Manganese were completely free, and processing cost you $0.00 per kilogram....you'd still be 10 times what the price of phthalo blue is in the current shortage! Yttrium is $34/kg btw, so you'll need about $12 of this to make 1kg of YInMn. Manganese is $2/kg and you'll only need about $0.10 of manganese to make 1kg of YInMn.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]