Innovation and development of new chemical material industry

Because of its lighter quality, better performance and stronger functionality, especially its higher technical requirements and technical content, new chemical materials have always been an important embodiment of a country's chemical technology level. In addition to the excellent characteristics that traditional chemical materials and metal materials do not have, they have become an indispensable important supporting material for high-end manufacturing industry in the world and developed countries It is the first choice for domestic and multinational companies to focus on development and strategic transformation. On November 4, at the 2019 (second) annual meeting of financial innovation alliance of petroleum and chemical industry and the summit of innovation, development and investment and financing of new chemical material industry hosted by China chemical industry news agency and financial innovation alliance of petroleum and chemical industry, Fu Xiangsheng, vice president of China Petroleum and chemical Industry Federation, comprehensively and deeply analyzed the innovation and development of new chemical material industry. This edition is published in full today to inspire the high quality development of the petroleum and chemical industry.

Current situation of new chemical materials development. Five major engineering plastics are polyamide, POM, polycarbonate, PBT, polyphenylene ether, and five major special engineering plastics are polyphenylene sulfide, polyimide, polysulfone, polyethersulfone, and peek. With the progress and innovation of technology, especially the types of special engineering plastics have been expanded in recent years, and their varieties and properties have been continuously enhanced. The lightweight of automobiles, especially the development of new energy vehicles and driverless technology; the large-scale civil airliner, such as A380, dreamland 787 and our c929; deep sea ocean, such as electronic information, human space exploration and spacewalk, stealth technology of national defense and military industry, aircraft carrier submarine, are inseparable from new chemical materials. The developed countries such as the United States, Europe and Japan, and the top 50 multinational chemical companies in the world all focus on the development of new chemical materials. Many well-known multinational companies regard new chemical materials as the first choice for transformation. At the same time, they increase innovation in the field of new chemical materials and accelerate the high-performance of traditional chemical materials. In recent decades, they have basically completed the transformation from traditional chemical industry to new chemical materials. The most typical is the development of Dow and DuPont, as well as the merger and re split in recent years. The new Dow, which was split on April 1 this year, is positioned as a new material company with an annual sales volume of about 48 billion US dollars. DuPont, founded in 217, realized the transformation from chemical company to material science in the last century. The new DuPont, which was split on June 1, is positioned as a special chemical, and its leading products also belong to the field of new materials as we call it, with an annual sales volume of about 25 billion US dollars. The focus of Mitsubishi Chemical Industry is also on the development of new chemical materials. The first is the functional materials, including high-function films, engineering plastics, carbon fiber and its composite materials, lithium-ion battery materials, etc. Mitsui chemical's core business is also functional materials. Its metallocene polymerized LLDPE, HDPE and polyurethane materials are among the world's leading levels. Mitsui chemical also focuses on the field of new materials in the future.

Multinational companies have all positioned their development in China in the field of new materials. Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Asahi, akoma, and Longsheng have all built and put into production new material projects in China. The most typical case is BASF and ExxonMobil announced to invest 10 billion US dollars each to build new material bases in Zhanjiang and Daya Bay respectively. As a big manufacturing country, China has a large market demand for new chemical materials. However, the output and types of new chemical materials in China are difficult to meet the actual demand of high-end manufacturing industry. New chemical materials have always been a short board and weak point in China's chemical industry. According to the research results of the Ministry of industry and information technology on more than 130 key basic materials in China, 32% of them are blank in China and 52% of them are imported. Some materials are monopolized by some companies, such as Dongli and Dili, which monopolize the market of high-performance fiber and its composite materials. DuPont and Dili control 90% of the global production capacity of aramid, and Xinyue, wack, Sumitomo and Mitsubishi occupy 80% of the international market of semiconductor silicon materials. According to the statistics of the special committee for new materials, the output of new chemical materials in China is about 22.1 million tons in 2018, with a self-sufficiency rate of about 65%. Among them, the output of engineering plastics is 3.06 million tons, the consumption is 5.48 million tons, and the self-sufficiency rate is about 55.9%; the output of functional membrane materials is about 5 billion square meters, the consumption is more than 6 billion square meters, and the self-sufficiency rate is more than 80%; the consumption of electronic chemicals is about 900000 tons, and the share of domestic products is low, such as photoresist, high polymer packaging materials and other parts of the product import dependency is more than 80%, especially the high-end products It's all imported.

The challenge of innovation and development of new chemical materials. After the reform and opening up, with the development of electronic information, automobile manufacturing, aerospace and other high-end manufacturing industries, each five-year development plan and annual plan of the chemical industry focuses on new chemical materials. During this period, many engineering plastics, special engineering plastics, as well as fluorosilicone materials, polyurethane materials, aramid and carbon fiber materials, membrane materials, etc. have made technological breakthroughs to achieve the goal of compliance Mold production, and is widely used in the civil field. In particular, entering many "third tier" enterprises, we realize that the new chemical material industry is also a microcosm of China's independence and self-reliance. The innovation and development achievements of new chemical material industry are remarkable, especially since the new century, the rapid development of new chemical material industry in China, the achievements are the main. However, from today's point of view, compared with the fundamental requirements of high-quality development put forward by the Party Central Committee, the innovation and development of China's chemical new material industry still faces some challenges. It is always the most severe challenge for new chemical materials that the key technology is difficult to break through. Polycarbonate, polyformaldehyde, PBT, organosilicon, carbon fiber, polyurethane and many other new chemical materials are all the categories that the state has organized key technical research since the Seventh Five Year Plan.

Among them, PBT, POM, organosilicon, etc. made the first technological breakthrough through independent research and digestion and absorption. In recent years, the core technologies in nylon new materials, polycarbonate, PMMA, polyurethane isocyanate, organic fluorine materials, polyimide and other fields have made breakthroughs, and reached the world advanced level. However, the production technology of many high-end models of new chemical material products has not been mastered, such as metallocene polyethylene special resin for high-end film, ethylene and α - olefin copolymerization product of metallocene polymerization, homopolymer polypropylene resin of metallocene, high-performance polyolefin elastomer, etc. There are also some key equipment that have not been mastered, such as oxidation furnace and carbonization furnace in the process of carbon fiber production. The most typical one is metallocene polymerization technology, which has higher flexibility and controllability. It is widely used in general plastics, elastomers and engineering plastics, etc. it is a new process with rapid development in the current olefin polymerization process. ExxonMobil, Dow, LyondellBasell, Nordic chemical and other multinational companies are all in the leading position in this field. Since the 1990s, China has organized national technology research and established a national engineering technology center. Over the past 20 years, Qilu Petrochemical, Daqing Petrochemical and Dushanzi Petrochemical still have product supply market, but the industrialization scale and product model are difficult to meet the market demand, and the self-sufficiency rate of metallocene polyolefin consumption is less than 30%. Another example is the production technology of hexamethylene dinitrile, the main monomer of nylon 66.

Nylon 66 can be used not only as engineering plastics but also as chemical fiber. It can be used in automobile, electronics, mechanical instruments, aerospace industry, tire cord, civil products, etc. In 2018, China's Nylon 66 production capacity is 430000 tons, production capacity is 300000 tons and apparent consumption is about 500000 tons. However, the production of nylon 66 in China is seriously restricted by adironitrile. Due to the lack of production technology of adironitrile, domestic nylon 66 production enterprises can only purchase adironitrile, resulting in the large profits obtained by multinational companies. Liaoyang Petrochemical once introduced French adiponitrile technology, but it stopped production due to high consumption, long process and poor economy. Later, Shandong Runxing built the acrylonitrile electrolysis process unit, but it exploded during the start-up, so far it has not resumed production. At present, the most representative production technologies of adiponitrile are the butadiene process of INVISTA company and the acrylonitrile electrolysis dimerization process of aoshengde company, both of which have advantages and disadvantages, but they are mature processes. In March this year, I led a team to visit aoshengde company. They attach great importance to the development in China, but there is no idea of technology transfer in the near future. INVISTA also has no possibility of technology licensing in the near future, although it previously announced the construction of 400000 T / a adiponitrile plant in Shanghai Chemical Industry Park. It can be seen that the domestic production technology of adiponitrile will be monopolized by multinational companies for a long time, and the development of domestic nylon 66 industry will be severely restricted by others.

However, it is gratifying that Tianchen's adiponitrile pilot plant has made a breakthrough and is cooperating with Qixiang Tengda in the construction of an industrial plant, with a scale of 200000 tons / year in the first phase. There are also preparation technologies of membrane materials, such as ion-exchange membrane for caustic soda industry. Since the Seventh Five Year Plan, China has organized national technical research, but it is still difficult to industrialize. This year, Dongyue Group has made major technological breakthroughs from resin to membrane manufacturing, but the market share of its products is not high. Now, 300000-400000 square meters of ion-exchange membrane that China needs every year is almost all imported. In addition, the new energy high-end membrane, high-end display membrane and medical membrane are mainly imported to meet the market demand due to the lack of core technology. For example, 70% of medical dialysis membrane, domestic dialysis membrane and components are imported from Germany and Japan. The shortage of high-end products has always been a short board for the innovation and development of new chemical materials. The structural contradiction of "surplus of low-end products and lack of high-end products" in the whole petrochemical industry has been prominent. In recent three years, although the whole industry has made remarkable achievements in eliminating backward production capacity and accelerating transformation and upgrading, this problem has not been solved. In 2018, the trade deficit of the whole petrochemical industry reached US $283.3 billion, an increase of 42.5%, of which the total deficit of synthetic resin, synthetic rubber and synthetic fiber monomer was US $56.7 billion, accounting for more than 20%. The varieties with large import volume and trade deficit are: Polyethylene imports 14.025 million tons, an increase of 18.9% over the previous year. Among them, the import of HDPE was 6.73 million tons, an increase of 5.2%; the import of LLDPE was 4.367 million tons, an increase of 44.3%. The trade deficit of polyethylene was 17.1 billion US dollars, an increase of 23.7%; that of polypropylene was 3.7 billion US dollars, an increase of 8%; that of synthetic rubber was 8.82 billion US dollars, of which the trade deficit of ethylene propylene rubber was 2.4 billion US dollars, and that of styrene butadiene rubber was 900 million US dollars. The shortage of high-end products in the field of new chemical materials is more prominent