Production,Application and Market of Thioglycolic Acid

The production technologies,applications and market of thioglycolic acid are introduced.The reaction based on monochloroacetic acid and sodium hydrosulfide is the main process suitable for its large-scaled production.Thioglycolic acid is mainly used as functional cosmetics,additives for synthetic material and corrosion inhibitor,etc.The thioglycolic acid output in China was less than 600t in 2002 with demand of 4500t,so the high-purity product almost fully depended on import.In 2004,the outputs of thioglycolic acid in the U.S.,Western Europe and Japan were 12400t/a,14000t/a and 3300t/a respectively.It is forecasted that the increase rate of consumption of thioglycolic acid is expected to be maintained at the level of 3% over the next five years.