◎ Yang Honghui
The Chinese synthetic rubber industry has experienced 60 years of brilliant development since the industrial production of the self-developed neoprene device in 1958. Starting from the independent research and development, through the introduction of technical development, and relying on independent innovation for constant improvement, enrichment and expansion, synthetic rubber has become one industry with the most raw materials and independent innovation technologies of products among the three major synthetic materials in China.
At present, China ranks the first in the world in the capacity, output and consumption of synthetic rubber devices, and eight general synthetic rubber technologies and main raw materials have realized industrialization through proprietary technologies; the production technologies of some general varieties are mature, the economic and technological indexes are comparable with those of foreign countries, and the TPE SBC is at the advanced level in the world.
On September 6, China Synthetic Rubber Industry Association held the 60th anniversary of the Chinese synthetic rubber industrialization and the 23rd annual industrial conference in Beijing, which comprehensively summarized the development achievements of the Chinese synthetic rubber industry in the past 60 years.
At the conference, Qi Runtong, the vice president of China Synthetic Rubber Industry Association gave an overall summary of the main achievements in the independent innovation of the Chinese synthetic rubber industry over the past 60 years, and emphatically introduced the independent development process of the industrial technologies of CR, BR, SBR, NBR, EPM, IIR, IR, SBS, TPV, liquid rubber, synthetic rubber monomer and other products.
It is learnt that over the past 60 years, the Chinese synthetic rubber industry had a rapid development, with the production capacity increasing to nearly 6 million tons in 2017 from 93,000 tons in 1978, which formed a development system including scientific research, production, design and application development, built a batch of production enterprises and R&D bases suitable for the development needs, and developed a talent team of high technical and business quality, laying a solid foundation for the development of the Chinese synthetic rubber industry. At present, the Chinese synthetic rubber industry has formed a pattern that Sinopec, CNPC, private enterprises and joint ventures exist side by side. Among them, the annual production capacity of synthetic rubber in Sinopec is 1.73 million tons, ranking first in China and second in the world. Liang Aimin, the president of China Synthetic Rubber Industry Association, pointed out that according to the development plan of the Chinese synthetic rubber industry, the industry needs to achieve two big leaps: firstly, complete the industrial structure adjustment in about 4 years, and achieve the entire industrial transformation through quality and technology upgrading; secondly, realize the transition from following and running to leading in another 15 years.
