“The project that introducing micro-chemical technology into rubber chemicals industry is in line with enterprises’ demand of innovation and has been industrialized by two firms within only two years, which can be seen as a good example of industry-university-research cooperation. Though the research of micro-chemical theory started relatively late in China, the micro-chemical industrialization of rubber chemicals has been in the international advanced level”, said Li Yongwu, the former president of China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation. He was very touched and hoped that enterprises would attach importance to the following four aspects: firstly, to further improve the micro-chemical process and equipment so as to form a complete technique chain; secondly, to increase the awareness of intellectual property protection; thirdly, micro-chemical technology will give enterprises a hand at present when ecology, safety and environmental protection are increasingly valued; and fourthly, as a kind of revolutionary and disruptive technology, micro-chemical technology may trigger a reshuffle in rubber chemicals industry during the time “hungry” for technology.

“There have been five conferences convoked in rubber chemicals industry for promoting the micro-chemical concept to enterprises ever since micro-chemical technology was paid attention to in this industry in 2015. Only over two years passed, the micro-chemical application technology for rubber chemicals has been industrialized outside the lab”, Xu Chunhua, executive deputy director of Green Rubber & Plastic Manufacturing Specialized Committee, Chemical Industry and Engineering Society of China (CIESC) told the reporter. He was very excited in the press interview and added that “Enterprises who produce rubber and plastic chemicals did not know and doubted whether to do or not before, but now they see these two industrialized projects by themselves. These projects are playing a leading and exemplary role”.

Professor Zhang Liqun, chairman of CIESC Green Rubber & Plastic Manufacturing Specialized Committee, presented 4 suggestions from the innovative aspect: firstly, to accelerate the creation and development of such new objects as anti-aging agent and accelerant; secondly, to speed up the development of new manufacturing technique for rubber chemicals; thirdly, to see the innovative development with new thoughts and firmly depend on new technical means such as green manufacturing and intelligent manufacturing with the introduction of micro-chemical concept into the rubber accelerator field taking the lead and growing rapidly; fourthly, systematic and integrative equipment support is required for the development of micro-chemical industrialization technology.

According to experts, micro-chemical technology starts a new era of efficient and fine chemicals in the 21st century. Quite different from the traditional manufacturing technique of batch-type reaction still, it remarkably shortens the reaction time and reduces the volume of reaction system, successfully solving the technical problems of traditional technique that are explosive and incomplete reaction. The reaction time is cut down from hours or dozens of hours to dozens of seconds or even seconds and the enormous traditional reaction vessels are reduced to be tabletop micro-reactors in liter or milliliter, which change the traditional image of chemical industry featuring serious pollution, high energy consumption and high safety risk, achieve intensified, safe, miniaturized and green chemical production and greatly improve the efficiency of resources and energy usage during the chemical industry production.

In this regard, Wang Zhiqiang, general manager of  Wiling New Materials Technology Co., Ltd., has the most to say. He said that he saw micro-reactors on an exhibition more than 10 years ago and he did not realize its application would make much sense at that time. But at present, he has saw a lot of difference because the traditional tank reactor need six to seven hours for reaction while the micro-chemical reaction only takes 13-15 seconds with high conversion rate of the whole products and less accessory substances, reducing the pressure on effluent treatment. Economically speaking, though the investment grows by 50%, the capacity increases by 4 times from 1,000 tons to 5,000 tons per year. “As less employees are required in the whole demonstration production line, we do not need to worry about their job-hopping any more.”

“As one of the first persons to try tomato in this industry, we have the courage, but also take a high risk for we maybe get poisoned by this tomato”, said Zhu Jiazhen, general manager of Stair Chemical & Technology Co., Ltd. Shandong. As one of the pioneers who ware aware of the micro-chemical concept, Stair Chemical & Technology soon established an academician workstation with Academician Ouyang Pingkai at the end of 2015 for cooperatively developing the technical research of micro-channel reaction in the application of anti-aging agent RD. In over two years, their innovative cooperation finally has a successful result.

According to reports, besides the above two first movers who have made success, China Sunsine Chemical Holdings Ltd. and Kemai Chemical Co., Ltd. also have conducted research on the application of the micro-chemical technology for the accelerant NS and CBS respectively. Wiling New Materials Technology has built the accelerant M and DM continuous production equipment featuring micro-chemical concept.

Expected in the next 5 years, micro-chemical technology would be popularized and applied in more rubber chemicals enterprises and other fine chemical filed, said Xu Chunhua. By taking the demonstration projects as a new start, the rubber chemicals industry will achieve its allaround goal of rubber industrial power through insisting on green manufacturing, completing the manufacturing technique of central control automation, consistently transforming from batch production to continuous production and create an upsurge of automation and intelligentization based on the claims in Made in China 2025.

This conference was held by CIESC Green Rubber & Plastic Manufacturing Specialized Committee and more than 160 representatives attended. Himile Chemical Technology (Shandong) Co., Ltd., Shanghai Sanotac Scientific Instruments Co., Ltd. and Guizhou Micro-chemical Technology Co., Ltd. displayed their micro-channel reactor devices on the scene.