From fertilizer bags to clothes to the world's largest producer of chemical fiber

When chemical fiber was invented in the early 20th century, it was completely out of the imitation of silk spinning. When people found that the viscosity of polyester polymer compounds such as petroleum as raw materials can be used to draw silk, human beings have been liberated to a large extent - for thousands of years, the first of the four things supporting "food, clothing, housing and transportation" is the natural cycle of "silk spinning, yarn spinning cloth", its dependence on natural fibers based on cotton has caused long-term problems in human society.

In China, after the middle of Ming Dynasty, there were mulberry competing for rice fields and cotton competing for grain fields. In the West, there was the enclosure of sheep in the 12th century, and through the slow development of the 13th to the 15th century, it eventually evolved into the enclosure movement that spawned the modern capitalist revolution in Britain.

Remember "Dacron", "dacron"? Dacron was originally an exotic Dacron. Originally appearing in Hong Kong, people call it "Dacron" according to Cantonese. Because it is durable and good-looking, every family is rushing to buy it. Dacron, a kind of polyester fiber, is also one of the earliest in China. Early dacron, with all the advantages of polyester fiber, that is, strong, crisp, easy to rinse; But it also has all the shortcomings of ordinary chemical fiber, that is, poor water absorption, easy static electricity, air permeability, etc.)

Girls especially like to wear red skirts, boys especially like to wear Dacron. In that era, if you can receive a piece of Dacron clothing, the return rate is quite high! This is aromatics technology.

Aromatics are an important foundation of the chemical industry, widely used in the three major synthetic materials as well as medicine, national defense, pesticides, building materials and other fields. Paraxylene is one of the largest aromatic varieties, closely related to people's lives, it is the initial raw material for the synthesis of the most widely used polyester fiber, through polyester slicing, drawing, textile, and then made into clothing or other daily use.

However, in the 1960s and 1970s, China's technology was still very backward, and it did not have the ability to process crude oil into fiber, and it could only rely on a small amount of imported fiber for processing every year, which was far from meeting the huge market demand. This is where the sad story of fertilizer bags being turned into pants comes in at the beginning of this article.

To solve the problem of clothing for 800 million people in China

In the early 1970s, from site selection, land reclamation to ignition test, the pioneers spent more than 5 years to build China's largest modern petroleum chemical fiber production base - Shanghai Petrochemical on the Jinshanwei Beach on the north side of Hangzhou Bay.

In 1979, polyester network yarn was successfully trial-produced

In 1977, bearing the historical mission of solving the people's "difficulty in dressing", Yizheng chemical fiber was included in the national key introduction project.

In 1978, the headquarters was prepared

In Yizheng County guest house office site ▲

In December 1983, the country canceled the cloth ticket, cotton opened the supply, people no longer worry about clothes.

On December 30, 1984, the first polyester production line of Yizheng Chemical Fiber Polyester Plant was opened and qualified polyester chips were produced.

In December 1984, Yihua phase I was completed and put into operation

On April 26, 1985, the first polyester staple fiber production line of the first Polyester plant was successfully put into production and qualified polyester staple fiber was produced.

1985 Polyester first plant spinning production ▲

June 1989, the company's first fashion show ▲

In the 1990s, Yizheng Chemical fiber I and II projects were fully completed and put into operation, forming an annual production capacity of 500,000 tons of chemical fiber and raw materials, accounting for one-third of China's synthetic fiber production, which can provide a set of "Dacron" new clothes for each person in China every year, which greatly alleviated the problem of difficult dressing for Chinese people.

Yizheng chemical fiber I and II projects completed and put into operation ▲

However, new problems ensued - the core of the entire polyester industry chain is to solve the problem of people's clothing, and the production technology of aromatic hydrocarbons, an important source of the polyester industry, has been dependent on imports.

Relevant data show that in the past 15 years, the average annual growth rate of paraxylene consumption of major aromatics in China is as high as 20%. However, the self-sufficiency rate of p-xylene in our country is only 50%, an important reason is that the production technology of aromatics has long been dependent on imports, the technical cost is expensive, and the industrial development is subject to people.

Before 2010, only the United States and France in the world have complete sets of technology to produce aromatics, and the technical barriers are very high. It has become an important goal for Sinopec to develop its own aromatic hydrocarbon production technology as soon as possible.