(June 4, 2026) Relying on policies for the resource utilization of agricultural and forestry waste, the industrialization of white carbon black using rice husk ash as raw material has recently accelerated. Thanks to its low-carbon attributes, it avoids EU carbon tariffs, becoming a new growth point for domestic white carbon black foreign trade, ushering in a new round of transformation in the raw material structure of the industry.
In previous years, silica production mostly relied on quartz ore and chemical raw materials, resulting in high mineral resource consumption and high carbon emissions. Products exported to the EU and many countries in Europe and America often faced high carbon tax deductions. This year, supporting chemical deep processing projects in agricultural and forestry industrial parks across the country have been launched. Major rice-producing areas have concentrated on recycling waste rice husks, calcined and extracted to prepare white carbon black raw materials, and the waste is converted locally, effectively solving the pollution problem from burning straw and husks, aligning with the dual-carbon environmental protection direction.
According to market research data, the comprehensive production cost of recycled silica is 10%~15% lower than that of traditional ore routes, and the carbon footprint has decreased by over 60%. In the current foreign trade environment, orders for recycled silica with complete low-carbon certification are in short supply. Buyers in Southeast Asia and the EU prioritize low-carbon grade products, with export premiums of 8%~12% for products of the same specification. Many small and medium-sized silica factories shut down old ore production lines and renovated rice husk ash recycling lines; in the second quarter, six 10,000-ton recycling units were officially put into operation.
At the product application level, recycled precipitated silica meets the standards for ordinary rubber, footwear, and daily-use silicone rubber, and some refined modified products have successfully entered the green tire supply chain. Due to raw material supply constraints, the current production capacity of recycled silica accounts for only about 7% of the domestic total. As the national rice husk recycling industry chain improves, there is ample room for capacity expansion.
Industry insiders analyze that under the normalized carbon tariff environment, low-carbon circular production has become the key path for the silica industry to break the low-price competition. In the future, raw materials will shift from mineral dependence to resource utilization of agricultural and forestry solid waste, becoming the mainstream direction for small and medium-sized factories to transform and upgrade.
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