How to break through the three major bottlenecks of new chemical materials?

The footsteps of the new scientific and technological revolution and the fourth industrial revolution have become more and more clear, especially the peak era of fossil energy has come, new energy and new energy technology has become an inevitable choice in today's world, which puts forward a realistic demand for new chemical materials, especially functional materials. The transformation and upgrading of our industry and the healthy and sustainable development of our economy and the realization of the dream from the manufacturing power to the powerful country cannot do without the special safeguard function of the new chemical materials.

New chemical materials closely related

A new chemical material and a carbon fiber bicycle at the Rio Olympics have helped Chinese women win zero gold MEDALS in women's team cycling. The 3.5kg bike, which can be grasped by an average person with one hand, is 50 times stronger than steel. Polyurethane "shark skin" (made of closed-cell polyurethane foam with air filled between each hole) helped Sun win gold. Sun, Ning and the virgin girl Fu Yuanhui wore swimsuits that are less dense than water, increasing the athletes' buoyancy and thus reducing drag in the water. In addition, the stadium's colorful polyurea coating (curing faster than 35 seconds, bright color, non-toxic, weather-resistant, low cost) and the Ping-Pong polyester new material show that the new chemical materials are closely related to the Games.

There are 100 VIP cars for G20 Hangzhou Summit. It is a T7 high-end business car produced by Zhengzhou Yutong. The seats, dashboard, armrest and other interior parts in the car are all new polyurethane materials, which are cold curing and high rebound combination materials, with the advantages of tasteless, good feel and wear resistance.

New chemical materials and space dream were launched on October 17, and the launch of Tiangong-2 on the night of Chuseok. In order to solve the problem of salt spray prevention, damp heat prevention and mold prevention of spacecraft, the thermal protection coating of spacecraft mainly includes silicone resin, epoxy resin, phenolic resin, etc., and the environmental protection coating mainly uses teflon. Astronaut space suit fabric is made of advanced mixed fiber, with high strength, high temperature resistance, impact resistance, radiation and other characteristics, the sandwich also has automatic plugging function; The fingers of the gloves are made of silicone rubber to operate precision instruments. The boot's inner layer is Teflon-coated fiberglass, followed by 25 overlapping layers of polyimide film and fiberglass cloth for lightness and insulation.

It can be seen that the new chemical materials have excellent performance, strong functionality and high technical content, which are important representatives of the technical level of the chemical industry. They are supporting cutting-edge fields such as aerospace, national defense and military industry, electronic information, high-speed railway and large aircraft, and belong to important strategic emerging industries. At the same time, it also provides important support for the development of high-end equipment manufacturing, new energy, new energy vehicles, energy conservation and environmental protection and other strategic emerging industries, as well as the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries. Therefore, both developed countries and multinational companies regard the innovation and development of new chemical materials as the top priority of their core competitiveness. Intellectual property protection and technological blockade are always the key that multinational companies hold tightly in their hands to occupy the technological commanding heights. Production of petrochemical industry in China has been six years in a row, the world's second, the chemical has been six years in a row row the world's first big country, structural surplus contradiction is very outstanding, but the industry structure adjustment and transformation and upgrading of the task is arduous, prime basic chemicals, severe overcapacity chemical new materials, specialty chemicals and other high-end product market in short supply. The excess capacity of basic chemicals in the traditional chemical industry has become a major disaster area, while the lack of high-end chemicals in the new chemical materials field also seriously restricts the development of important areas of the national economy.

It is difficult to industrialize high-end products and drag down the development of the industry

The total output of new chemical materials in the world exceeded 60 million tons, and the total output value exceeded 2 trillion yuan. In terms of output and output value, the United States accounts for 38% and 30% respectively, Western Europe accounts for 20.6% and 19.7% respectively, and Japan accounts for 12% and 16.8% respectively. In other words, the output of the three countries accounts for 70% and more than 2/3 of the world's total output. Among the top 50 global chemical companies, the United States, Germany and Japan occupy 27 seats. Dupont, Dow, BASF, Lanxess, Kosetron, Sumitomo Chemical, Toray, Asahi Kasei and other multinational companies all focus on new chemical materials and specialized chemicals. Among them, the transformation and upgrading of Japanese chemical industry is worth learning. As we all know, Japan is at the world's leading level in the field of electronic chemicals, high performance membrane materials, high performance fibers, engineering plastics and special engineering plastics, high-end polyolefin resins, high performance rubber, fluorosilicone resins and rubber and other fields with a high level.

This year, the author had three in-depth exchanges with the Japanese chemical industry at the Industrial Economic Forum of the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in early April, the panel discussion of the Japan Alumni Association in early August and the China-Japan Petrochemical Summit Forum in mid-September. During the exchange, major Japanese chemical companies such as Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and Mitsui all said that the future development of Japanese chemical companies will focus on new chemical materials and specialized chemicals.

China has been attaching great importance to the development and industrialization of new chemical materials. Since "purpose", ">", our country has been around a national priority areas and major projects, tissue engineering plastics, special engineering plastics, special fiber, such as membrane materials for technical research, pilot plant research and development of industrialization, since "11th five-year plan" of fluorine and silicon material, polyurethane material, engineering plastics, high performance rubber industry such as device capability of rapid growth, Advanced energy storage materials, photovoltaic materials, organic silicon and other production capacity of the world's leading. However, because the core technology is difficult to overcome and the industrialization technology cannot be mastered, the equipment and output of some general varieties are considerable, but most high-end products are always difficult to industrialization and stable supply. At present, the domestic chemical industry new material market comprehensive self-sufficiency rate is only about 60%, this field has become the largest short board of our petrochemical industry, but also the development of our strategic emerging industry, key engineering, even become a major restriction factor involving the national security. At the high end products, the gap between our country and Japan is obvious. According TO statistics, China's production of new chemical materials is 105 million tons more than Japan, but the output value is less than 46 billion yuan.

Three bottlenecks restrict the industry into the forefront of the world

The scale and production technology level of oil refining and bulk inorganic and organic chemicals in China's petrochemical industry can be said to be comparable with the international level. However, there is a significant gap between the new chemical materials industry, which represents the advanced technology level of the petrochemical industry, and the international level, even bigger than that of international multinational companies. The main performance is three bottlenecks:

1. It is difficult to achieve stable supply of high-end products. The self-sufficiency rate of high-end products in the new chemical materials industry is low. In 2015, the consumption of engineering plastics was 4.21 million tons, and the self-sufficiency rate was only 49%. Carbon consumption in the same period was 1.66 million tons, of which 73% was imported; Last year, the consumption of high-end polyolefin was 9.22 million tons, of which 5.87 million tons were imported. The self-sufficiency rate was only 38%. The carbon fiber of high performance fiber, the domestic plant operation rate is only 20%, the self-sufficiency rate is 28.6%; More representative is the high performance membrane material, the market capacity of about 45 billion yuan, the comprehensive self-sufficiency rate of 43%. According to statistics, in 7 categories, 12 products in the self-sufficiency rate of less than 20% there are 6, the annual consumption of electrolytic with perfluorion exchange membrane 190,000 square meters, almost all by import; Perfluorinated fuel cell membrane, self-sufficiency rate 5%; PVF/PVDF backplane protective film annual consumption of 410 million square meters, self-sufficiency rate of 10%; Industrial gas separation membrane, self-sufficiency rate of 13%; The annual consumption of reverse osmosis membrane is about 34 million square meters, self-sufficiency rate is 15%; The annual consumption of hemodialysis membrane was 11 million square meters, with a self-sufficiency rate of 18%.

2. Core technologies cannot be conquered for a long time. Although China has always attached great importance to the new chemical materials industry, some core technologies have always been difficult to conquer, especially the industrial technology, so as to seriously restrict the development of the industry. Engineering plastics polycarbonate from the beginning of the "purpose", is given priority to with the morning school and changzhou organic chemical plant, polyformaldehyde, from the beginning of the "five-year", solvent factory in Shanghai and JiLinShi groove joint chemical plants is given priority to, well organized scientific research, now the domestic existing industrial production device, but are based on universal species is given priority to, high-end varieties or difficult to continuous and stable supply. Carbon fiber is started in the 1960 s, and later organization in colleges and universities and enterprises to carry out the national science and technology research, always did not form a continuous and stable industrial production device, the current domestic many factories are built of carbon fiber production line, the T300 product can provide, T700, T800 and other high-end products, or difficult to break through technical bottlenecks, The problems of unstable product quality, low actual output, poor uniformity and stability of products, and high cost have not been well solved. The research and development of ion exchange membrane started in the late 1950s, has not formed industrial production equipment. China is now the world's largest country in chlor-alkali production, the industry average annual demand for perfluorinated ion exchange membrane 300,000 ~ 400,000 square meters, almost all depend on imports. Although IT has been successfully developed by Dongyue Group, the large-scale industrial application of engineering plastics such as nylon, polyphenylene sulfide, ISoprene rubber and photoresist is still a long way off.

3. Key raw materials cannot be attacked for a long time. Key raw materials, such as nylon engineering plastics using adiponitrile, main points method of butadiene and acrylonitrile electrolysis production technology, international with butadiene method is given priority to, because of the short reaction process, low energy consumption accounts for about 70%, has long been invista, basf, a few companies such as monopoly, our country has been can't grasp its core technology, products mainly rely on imports, seriously restricts the development of nylon 66. Because hexene, octene and other high carbon alkenes depend on imports, the self-sufficiency rate of hexene copolymer polyethylene is 44% and that of octene copolymer polyethylene is only 8.3%. In 2015, China's high-end polyolefin market consumption of 9.22 million tons, imports of 5.87 million tons. In addition, the PTT (polypropylene terephthalate) of high performance fiber is also affected by the lack of supply of raw propylene glycol for a long time.

How to break through these bottlenecks and constraints? The key is innovation. General secretary at the G20 summit to speak "innovation fundamentally open the lock of the key to growth", innovation is the first of five development idea, only innovation can conquer the key core technology, only innovation can promote chemical new material product rate, only innovation can improve the high-end and differentiation of chemical new material product.

What is the focus of innovation? First, it focuses on the industrialization of basic products of new chemical materials to realize the continuous and stable production of important products such as engineering plastics, special engineering plastics and high performance fibers. Second, it focuses on high-end and serialization of products, and increases the R&D and industrialization of downstream product chains and terminal products such as fluorosilicon materials, electronic chemicals and high-performance membrane materials. 3 it is paid close attention to the field of chemical new material new technology and products, such as inorganic ceramic membrane, for highly efficient separation function, but also has high temperature resistance, chemical corrosion resistance, good mechanical strength, strong antimicrobial ability, osmotic quantity is big, can clean sex strong, long service life, etc, are increasingly brought to the attention of the people, and is becoming an important component of high performance membrane material, Nanjing University of Technology has carried out research and development for many years, has basically mastered the preparation technology of inorganic ceramic membrane, is accelerating the application and development of petrochemical industry, is expected to form a market scale of more than 10 billion in the next few years. Four is to attach great importance to the development of functional materials, functional materials in the field of chemical industry of new materials is a hotspot of research and development of countries all over the world and priorities, along with the information technology, biotechnology, new energy technology, and development in the field of aviation and aerospace technology, especially with China's large aircraft, such as high-speed rail transit and other key projects, As well as the development of electronic appliances, communication equipment, ecological environment industry, superconducting materials, flat panel display materials, rare earth functional materials, biomedical materials, hydrogen storage and other new energy materials, are incubating huge development potential and market space.