In the past 40 years of reform and opening up, China's polyurethane industry has relied on independent innovation to achieve a series of brilliant achievements in raw material production and downstream markets. From 1978 to 2018, the annual production of polyurethane in China has increased from 500 tons to 10 million tons.
Polyurethane materials include polyurethane foam, elastomers, fibers, coatings, adhesives, leather, etc., which are widely used in chemical, materials, construction, automotive, electronics, textile, etc. China has been producing foamed resins since the 1960s. However, it has stagnated for a long period of time. In 1978, the annual production capacity of polyurethane products in the country was 11,000 tons, and the output was only 500 tons.
Lu Jie, secretary general of the China Polyurethane Industry Association, said that due to the variety of raw materials required for the manufacture of polyammonia, the production process is complex and the process is long. Especially the isocyanate production design has a high risk of nitrification and phosgenation reactions, and more supporting materials. In terms of economic and technical level restrictions, there is no condition for the construction of a complete industrial chain of the polyurethane industry in China, nor is it possible to mass produce polyurethane products.
After the 1980s, with the acceleration of the opening up to the outside world, China began to introduce foreign advanced polyurethane raw materials and product production technology and equipment, which played a very good role in the development of the domestic polyurethane industry. At that time, domestic research institutions And the company has also begun to develop new technologies for reaction injection molding, high resilience cold curing foam, polymer polyol, modified MDI and other products and special raw materials. By 1991, the total output of polyurethane products nationwide had reached 150,000 tons. Compared with 1982, it has increased by about 20 times. In the same period, the production of polyurethane raw materials has also achieved great development: In 1978, one of the 22 projects approved by the state, Yantai Synthetic Leather Factory, introduced MDI production equipment. After a long period of exploration, production It tends to be normal, and gradually masters the key technologies, and begins to carry out reconstruction and expansion; the 20,000-ton/year TDI production line introduced by Gansu Yinguang Chemical Industry Co., Ltd. passed the national acceptance in 1992; the polyether polyol formed an annual output of more than 100,000 tons. Capacity. This stage can be said to be the start-up stage of the rapid development of China's polyurethane industry driven by the introduction of technology.
In the 1990s, the rapid development of polyurethane resin products brought about by the great development of the manufacturing industry. With the continuous rapid development of the national economy and the market vitality stimulated by the reform and opening up, polyurethane resin is used as a new multifunctional polymer new material. Automotive, construction, refrigeration, insulation, furniture, metallurgy, mining, petrochemical, textiles, etc. have been widely used, and the rapid growth of demand has further stimulated the development of the polyurethane industry. Soft foam box foaming The company is booming, the automatic casting foam insulation layer production line of the refrigerator production base, the sandwich foam hard foam casting production line, the continuous bulk soft foam production line, the molding soft foam production line, etc., totaling hundreds, thousands of tons to 10,000 tons There are more than ten production plants for polyurethane coatings and adhesives. At this time, there are thousands of production, management and research and development units of polyurethane products and machinery and equipment in the country, and there are hundreds of large-scale enterprises. By 2000 The annual output of polyurethane products has reached 1.02 million tons. The average annual growth rate of production during the period from 1991 to 1998 exceeded 25%. But in the same period, the development of polyurethane raw materials in China still Relatively lagging, Gansu Yinguang, Yanzhou Fertilizer Plant, Taiyuan Fertilizer Plant introduced a small-scale TDI production equipment, most of the TDI and MDI polyurethane raw materials are still heavily dependent on imports, and the annual import volume has risen sharply.
After more than ten years of research and experience accumulation, entering the 21st century, represented by Yantai Wanhua, China's polyurethane production enterprises have begun to make comprehensive breakthroughs in the fields of production scale, product types, and technical level. Leading enterprises have entered the international arena. By 2017 There are five domestic isocyanate companies, including Wanhua Chemical, Gansu Yinguang, Southeast Electrochemical, China Chemical Zhangzhou Dahua and Yantai Juli, of which Wanhua Chemical has 600,000 tons (Yantai) + 1.2 million tons (Ningbo) MDI Production capacity has become a world-class polyurethane production enterprise with independent intellectual property rights. There are many polyether polyol production enterprises, mainly Shandong Dongda, Zhonghai Shell, Wanhua Chemical and so on.
At the same time, China has become the world's largest polyurethane raw material production base and the largest production and consumption market of polyurethane products. Polyurethane foam has become the most important variety of polyurethane materials, and its output accounts for more than 50% of the total polyurethane products. Synthetic leather slurry, sole Raw liquid, spandex and coatings also account for a large proportion, and its output, consumption, and export volume rank first in the world. In 2017, China's polyurethane product consumption was about 11.1 million tons (including solvent), pure polyurethane resin. 8.4 million tons.