New chemical materials are key materials needed for national economic construction, including high performance polyolefin materials, special rubber, functional polymer materials, special fibers, special engineering plastics and their alloys, polyurethane, silicone, organofluorine, composites, microelectronic chemical materials, nano chemical materials, special coatings, special adhesives, special auxiliaries and so on. Widely used in aerospace, electronic information, rail transit, medical and health, national defense and military industry, new energy vehicles and other key fields, it is recognized as one of the most important and fastest-growing high-tech industries in the world, and plays an important supporting role in promoting the upgrading of traditional industries. it plays an important supporting role in promoting the development of strategic emerging industries such as high-end equipment manufacturing, biomedicine, new energy, electronic information, energy conservation and environmental protection. After years of development, the global chemical new materials industry generally presents a pattern of technological leadership in developed countries and accelerated development in emerging economies. The development level of new chemical materials has become an important embodiment of national strategy and national competitiveness.
Four characteristics of the Development of International Chemical New Materials Industry
Developed countries and regions such as the United States, Europe and Japan are in the first echelon of the development of new chemical materials industry, and have comparative advantages in technology and market. At present, the development of global chemical new materials industry has formed a three-tier echelon. The United States, Europe and Japan are the first echelon and have comparative advantages in terms of economic strength, core technology, R & D capability and market share; China, Russia and South Korea are in the second echelon, and the chemical new materials industry is developing rapidly; as the third echelon, emerging economies such as Brazil, India and South Africa are in a state of catch-up.
The global leading enterprises of new chemical materials are also mainly concentrated in developed countries and regions such as the United States, Europe, Japan and South Korea, such as ExxonMobil, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Bayer, Yingchuang and so on. Europe's BASF, Disman, Costco, Japan and South Korea Toray, Cola Li, Mitsubishi Chemistry, Mitsui Chemical, Dajin Fluorine Chemical, Rakuten, Korean Chemical, Sumitomo Chemical and so on. These enterprises have accumulated decades or even hundreds of years of experience in the field of new chemical materials, and have formed strong competitive advantages by strengthening technological research and development, building sales networks, strengthening brand building, training professionals and other management strategies. its technological research and development and business trends are widely concerned by the industry.
       industrial cluster development, high-tech leadership, accelerated pace of product iteration, large multinational leaders form strategic partners to carry out global cooperation, and monopoly of high-end materials technology is accelerated. With the acceleration of global economic integration, clustering has become a prominent feature of the development of global chemical new materials industry. Some large multinational corporations have formed strategic partners to carry out global cooperation, and occupy a dominant position in the global chemical new materials industry through mergers and acquisitions, restructuring and the construction of industrial ecosphere. For example, large multinational corporations, such as DuPont, GE Plastics, Dow Chemical, Mitsubishi Chemical, Sumitomo Chemical, LG and other major manufacturers of new chemical materials in the world, accelerate the research and development of new chemical materials and maintain a leading position in the market of new materials with high technology content and high added value.
       at present, the overall development of the global chemical new materials industry has entered a new stage of high-tech leadership, accelerated product iteration, and continuous expansion of industrial scale and demand. With the continuous growth of the world economy, the driving force for enterprises to develop new chemical materials is increasing, and the demand space for new chemical materials is expected to continue to expand in the future.
With the cross-integration of multi-disciplines and cross-disciplines, the R & D model of new materials has accelerated innovation, major changes have taken place in the R & D, design, production and application of new materials, and the R & D cycle and R & D costs have been greatly reduced. With the rapid development of advanced information technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, supercomputer and quantum computing, as well as the breakthroughs in basic disciplines and the continuous emergence of new technologies, the global chemical new materials industry presents the characteristics of multi-disciplinary technology intersection, integration and innovation. For example, methods such as material genome and quantum chemistry can provide large amounts of structured data for the research and development of new materials, and artificial intelligence technology can quickly find the causal relationship between the structure, production process, properties and uses of new materials from the massive data. it is expected to quickly promote major changes in the research, design, manufacture and application of new materials, and greatly reduce the research and development cycle and cost of new materials. And speed up the process of exploring and discovering cutting-edge materials, realizing new functions of materials, and accelerating the innovation of new materials.
The market scale of new chemical materials continues to expand, the green development trend of the whole life cycle is obvious, and the overall development prospect is broad. At present, the world has formed a large-scale, full range of new chemical materials industry. In 2022, the market size will reach US $465 billion, with an output of 110 million tons. The scale of demand will continue to expand in the future, and it is estimated that by 2028, the market size will reach 610 billion US dollars, with an output of about 150 million tons. At present, sustainable development has become a global consensus, energy-saving, environmental protection, recyclable, low-carbon and other materials green technology will be the irreversible trend of the future development of new materials. Countries all over the world actively combine the development of new materials with green development, attach great importance to the coordination of new materials with resources, environment and energy, and vigorously promote the green development of new materials in the whole life cycle. For example, Europe initiated the whole life cycle technology of materials, and attached great importance to low consumption, low cost, less pollution and comprehensive utilization from production to use.
The four major characteristics of the development of China's chemical new materials industry China's relevant industrial policies have been introduced intensively, giving strong support to the development of the chemical new materials industry, and the chemical new materials industry has ushered in a good opportunity for development. In recent years, China has issued a series of strategic guidance documents, such as "made in China 2025", "guidelines for the implementation of Industrial strong Foundation projects (2016w2020)", "guidance on structural Adjustment of Petrochemical Industry to promote Transformation and increase efficiency", and "Guide to the Development of New Materials Industry". Regard new materials as one of the strategic emerging industries for future development. Especially after the trade friction between China and the United States in 2018, China has increased its policy support in areas such as high-end manufacturing and new materials. The 14th five-year Plan and the outline of the long-term goals for 2035 propose to vigorously develop strategic emerging industries and accelerate the growth of a new generation of information technology, biotechnology, new energy, new materials, high-end equipment, new energy vehicles, green environmental protection, aerospace, marine equipment and other industries.
Since the nbsp;      "double carbon" goal was put forward, China has further supported the development of industries such as circular economy and biological manufacturing. New chemical materials are closely related to the promotion of green low-carbon development and carbon neutralization in the refining and chemical industry, which is indispensable in the process of transformation, upgrading and high-quality development of the refining and chemical industry. After several years of independent research and development and technology introduction and re-innovation, Sinopec enterprises have gradually made breakthroughs in their products. Driven by factors such as industrial transformation and upgrading, policy guidance and demand growth, China's chemical new materials industry ushered in a good opportunity for layout.
Driven by market demand, Sinochem's new materials research and development, investment and construction, production and sales maintain a trend of rapid growth. With the introduction of relevant policies and regulations and the rapid development of strategic emerging industries such as aerospace, energy-saving and new energy vehicles, biomedicine and high-performance medical equipment, and the new generation of information technology industry, China's chemical new materials industry has maintained a strong development trend. The industrial system has been continuously improved, the industrial scale has continued to expand, and the self-sufficiency rate has gradually increased. According to the data released by the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation, in 2021, China's new chemical materials production capacity reached 41.66 million tons, output reached 29.65 million tons, output value 961.6 billion yuan, net imports 8.691 million tons, consumption 38.33 million tons. In 2021, the self-sufficiency rate of special engineering materials will reach 62%, high-end polyolefin materials 58%, high-performance synthetic rubber 89%, functional membrane materials 67%, and electronic chemicals 75%. In 2022, the production capacity of new chemical materials in China will reach 45 million tons, with an output of 33.23 million tons, with an output value of 1.316 trillion yuan.
The new material industrial cluster is gradually formed, showing the spatial layout of "gathering along the eastern coast and characteristic development in the central, western and northeast regions", and the differential development of industrial clusters is accelerated. According to China's regional coordinated development strategy and main functional area strategy, based on the comparative advantages of industrial foundation, scientific research conditions, resource endowment, market demand and other comparative advantages, develop new materials industry with regional characteristics and promote the agglomeration development of enterprises related to new materials. A number of new material industry clusters with their own characteristics have emerged. On the whole, the development of new material industry in eastern, central, western and northeast China has its own emphasis, showing the spatial layout of "gathering along the eastern coast and characteristic development in the central, western and northeast regions", with obvious regional characteristics. Among them, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and other regions have formed comprehensive new material industry clusters, the central and western regions have formed characteristic new material industry bases based on material deep processing and resource utilization, and the northeast region has formed a characteristic new material industry base serving major equipment and projects.
The ability of independent innovation of new material technology is insufficient, many key core technologies are controlled by people, the structural contradiction of market supply is prominent, and the high-quality development of industry is facing great challenges. The scale of China's chemical new materials industry is growing rapidly, and the overall development is very fast, but the industrial development is "large but not strong". There are some outstanding contradictions and problems, mainly in the following three aspects.
First, there is an oversupply of low-end materials, but the development of high-end and differentiated materials is insufficient, and the self-sufficiency rate of some key materials is low. For example, the self-sufficiency rate of metallocene polyethylene and polypropylene is only 10%. The self-sufficiency rate of EVA resin is 48% Poe and EVOH resin, UHV cable ultra-pure insulating polyethylene special materials, ethylene-butyl acrylate copolymer (EAA), some electronic chemicals and so on are completely dependent on imports, and the structural contradiction in material supply is prominent. Second, many key core technologies of new materials are controlled by others, especially the synthesis technology, catalyst technology and key raw material production technology of some new chemical materials with high degree of external dependence, it is still in the transition stage from self-sufficiency of middle and low-end products to independent research and development of middle and high-end products instead of imports. Third, the main body of market competition presents a diversified pattern of foreign enterprises, state-owned enterprises and private enterprises, with obvious market segmentation and increasingly fierce competition; the problem of "small, miscellaneous and scattered" capacity distribution is prominent, the convergence of upstream, middle and downstream enterprises is not close, and there is a lack of leading enterprises. the coordinated development of the industry is insufficient and the overall competitiveness is weak, which requires the whole industry to strengthen cooperation and collaborative innovation. Source: PetroChina and Chemical Industry