Sirbang Petrochemical's 20,000 tons/year ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene plant was put into operation

On December 27, in Jiangsu Lianyungang Petrochemical Industrial Base, Shenghong-Sirbang Petrochemical's 20,000 tons/year ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) plant was successfully started up at one time and produced qualified products
.

The new energy industry has promoted the rapid increase in UHMWPE demand

UHMWPE is a thermoplastic engineering plastic with excellent performance, impact resistance, wear resistance, corrosion resistance, widely used in aerospace, marine engineering, rail transit, petrochemical, new energy materials and other cutting-edge fields, known as "the magic plastic of the 21st century"
.

In recent years, with the rapid development of new energy vehicles, high-speed rail, medical bionics, high-performance fibers and other industry technologies, the demand for UHMWPE has increased
significantly.
In the field of new energy, due to the strong ability to resist external puncture, and melt without collapsing at high temperature, UHMWPE has become one of
the hot lithium battery separator materials.

Thanks to the continuous growth of China's new energy vehicle power battery market, the lithium battery separator market has grown rapidly
.
Data shows that in the first half of 2022, China's new energy vehicle sales were 2.
6 million units, corresponding to 110.
1GWh of power battery installations, a year-on-year increase of 109.
8%.

During the same period, domestic lithium battery separator shipments were 5.
4 billion square meters, a year-on-year increase of more than 55%, corresponding to the demand for UHMWPE resin of about 110,000 tons
.

It is expected that by 2025, the domestic demand for UHMWPE diaphragm materials will have an average annual compound growth rate of more than 30%, and the market will usher in a period
of rapid development.

Technology leadership will accelerate the filling of the high-end UHMWPE gap

At present, China's ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene production capacity has accounted for 40% of the world's total production capacity, and the mainstream production process has been localized, but the high-end materials required by China still need to be imported
in large quantities.
According to statistics, the current production capacity of UHMWPE resin for diaphragms in China is about 80,000 tons/year, compared with the actual market demand of 110,000 tons in the first half of 2022, the import dependence is more than 50%.

As a national high-tech enterprise, Sirbang Petrochemical has industry-leading technical reserves
in the research of key catalysts and polymerization technologies in the production process of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene.
By adopting advanced water washing technology, Sirbang products have lower volatile content, more stable product properties, more uniform distribution of product particle diameter, and the particle size can be flexibly adjusted according to the needs of users, plasticizing performance is better, and can completely replace imported products, which will greatly reduce the dependence of high-end diaphragm materials in foreign markets and help realize domestic substitution
.

Press the "fast forward button" The new trillion-level energy storage track runs out of acceleration

Not long ago, Shenghong officially signed an energy storage headquarters project, with a total investment of 20 billion yuan, relying on the core refining and chemical raw material platform to create a complete energy storage industry chain from new energy materials, batteries, modules to terminal products
.

As the first move of the project, after the ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene plant reaches full production, it can achieve an annual output of 20,000 tons of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene products, which will provide sufficient high-end separator materials for the downstream battery cell link, and press the "fast forward button"
for the new track of Shenghong power trillion-level energy storage.

With high performance, low cost and special resin becoming the main development trend of UHMWPE resin, the successful production of Sirbang ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene plant is of great significance for breaking the blockade of foreign technology, enriching the structure of polyolefin products in China, and enhancing market competitiveness, and plays an important role
in improving the quality and efficiency of enterprises.

In the future, Shenghong will continue to focus on the R&D and capacity expansion of high-end polyolefins, deeply coupling upstream and downstream, and continue to promote the "1+N" strategy in depth, accelerating the creation of a world-class green new energy and new materials industrial cluster
with international competitiveness.