As of 2025, the Chinese market for Polydiallyldimethylammonium Chloride (PolyDADMAC) shows the following key characteristics:
1. Continuous Growth in Market Size
In recent years, China’s PolyDADMAC market has maintained steady growth. By 2025, its market size has reached a certain scale. It is expected to expand further in the next few years.
Globally, the PolyDADMAC market size is projected to be $283 million in 2025. China’s market plays an important role in this global scale. However, the specific value of China’s market is not fully disclosed in public summaries.
From 2019 to 2025, both sales volume and revenue of China’s PolyDADMAC market kept rising. According to industry reports, in 2025, China’s market sales and revenue were significantly higher than those in 2020. Growth is also expected from 2026 to 2031.
Some reports do not release the annual specific market size figures of China’s PolyDADMAC market from 2019 to 2025. But trend charts and forecast data show that China’s market has expanded steadily in the past five years. This growth is mainly driven by rising demand in application areas such as water treatment, paper making, and cosmetics.
2. Wide Range of Application Areas
PolyDADMAC is widely used in multiple fields, including water treatment, cosmetics, paper making, textile printing and dyeing, and oilfields. Among these, the water treatment sector is its main application market (for sewage purification and drinking water treatment).
2.1 Water Treatment
- Drinking water purification: It removes suspended solids, colloids, humic acids, and other organic substances from water. This reduces turbidity and color, and improves water safety.
- Sewage treatment: In high-difficulty wastewater treatment (such as printing and dyeing, paper making, and oily wastewater), PolyDADMAC removes pollutants like dyes, oil droplets, and heavy metals. It works through charge neutralization and adsorption bridging.
- Sludge dewatering: As a cationic flocculant, it strengthens the sludge floc structure and improves dewatering efficiency.
2.2 Cosmetics
- Conditioner: Used in shampoos, it is mixed with cationic guar gum and cellulose. This improves hair smoothness and antistatic properties.
- Film-forming agent: Forms a protective film in skin care products. It enhances the product’s moisturizing effect and adhesion.
- Good compatibility: Can be used together with surfactants like betaine. This improves product stability.
2.3 Paper Industry
- Anionic trash catcher: Neutralizes anionic impurities in pulp. This improves pulp cleanliness.
- AKD sizing accelerator: Enhances the retention rate and sizing effect of sizing agents. This improves the water resistance of paper.
- Retention and drainage aid: Increases the retention rate of fillers and fibers. This improves paper formation and drainage performance.
2.4 Textile Printing and Dyeing
- Formaldehyde-free fixing agent: Used in post-dyeing treatment. It improves fabric color fastness and avoids formaldehyde pollution.
- Antistatic agent: Used in the processing of synthetic fibers (such as polypropylene). It reduces static accumulation and improves spinning and weaving performance.
- Fabric treatment agent: Enhances the fiber’s ability to absorb dyes and finishing agents. This improves dyeing uniformity.
2.5 Oilfield Chemistry
- Clay stabilizer: Prevents clay swelling and dispersion during drilling. This protects the oil and gas reservoir structure.
- Acid fracturing additive: Improves the viscosity of fracturing fluid and its sand-carrying capacity. This enhances oil and gas well productivity.
- Water injection treatment agent: Used for flocculation and purification of reinjected water. This prevents formation blockage.
3. Relatively High Industry Concentration
Participants in China’s PolyDADMAC market include both domestic and foreign enterprises. Examples are multinational companies like SNF and Kemira, and local enterprises like Shandong IRO.
Market competition is fierce. Some local enterprises have gained a certain market share by leveraging cost and service advantages.
As of 2025, China’s PolyDADMAC industry shows a pattern of “concentrated production capacity, obvious regional clusters, and coexistence of domestic and foreign capital”. Its concentration level is moderately high.
There is no absolute monopoly in the industry, but the leading enterprises have a significant influence. The East China region accounts for about 82% of the country’s total production capacity and export volume. It has formed the “Bohai Bay-Yangtze River Delta” industrial belt.
4. Active Import and Export Trade
China has frequent import and export trade of PolyDADMAC. It both imports and exports this product. Imports mainly come from countries with advanced technologies. Exports are targeted at developing countries and regions.
5. Supportive Policy Environment
The Chinese government attaches great importance to the environmental protection and water treatment industries. This provides policy support for the PolyDADMAC market and promotes its application in the water treatment field.
Overall, the policy environment for PolyDADMAC in China follows a “dual-track support” model of “encouragement + standardization”.
Encouragement side: PolyDADMAC is included in the national encouraged industry catalog. Enterprises in this sector enjoy capital support and tax benefits. They can also obtain special funds.
Standardization side: PolyDADMAC projects must be located in compliant industrial parks. They must meet requirements for clean production, VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) double replacement, and safety automation.
If enterprises adopt continuous, closed, and low-VOCs emission processes, they will get green channels in approval, financing, electricity prices, and sewage discharge quotas. On the contrary, they will face restrictions on project approval, elimination, or high governance costs.
6. Technological Innovation and Upgrading
Domestic enterprises are increasing their R&D investment. This helps improve product quality and technological content. Some products have performance close to or reaching the international advanced level.
The technological innovation of PolyDADMAC in China has upgraded from the traditional route (intermittent production, high monomer residue, uncontrollable molecular weight) to the 4th-generation platform (continuous production, low monomer residue, adjustable structure, composite functions). It is now moving towards the 5th-generation (green and intelligent).
With the application of micro-reaction, photo-initiation, and biodegradable composite technologies in 10,000-ton-level production equipment, PolyDADMAC will enter the 5th-generation stage of “green-intelligent-functional integration”. This will provide more efficient, low-consumption, and sustainable solutions for water treatment, paper making, oilfields, and other fields.
Conclusion
In 2025, China’s PolyDADMAC market maintains a sound development trend. Downstream demand grows steadily, and the industrial competitiveness is gradually improving.