Foreign engineering plastics industry started earlier. In 1931, DuPont Company of United States synthesized PA66 for the first time in laboratory. In 1939, PA66 realized industrialization and was the first industrialized engineering plastic. From 1950 to 1980, it was a period of rapid development of global engineering plastics industry. Bayer of Germany, DuPont of United States, and Qiqi of United States successively developed engineering plastics such as polycarbonate (PC), polyoxymethylene (POM), and polyimide (PI).

 

In comparison, my country's engineering plastics started late, but developed rapidly. At present, a complete industrial chain with related supporting capabilities such as resin synthesis, plastic modification and alloying, processing and application has been gradually formed. Scale of industry continues to expand, and exports continue to grow; Scale of enterprise continues to grow and variety of products continues to increase; level of science and technology is improving day by day, technology and quality indicators of some products have also approached advanced foreign level. In recent years, industrialization of PPS, PI, PEEK and other special engineering plastics and downstream products has accelerated. Small varieties such as polysulfone, polyarylate, and special polyamide are in the stage of technology development and application research, and industrialization process is slow.
Chart 1: Development history of global and domestic engineering plastics industry

 

With the rapid development of automobile, electronics, electrical, communication technology and machinery industry, demand for engineering plastics with special and excellent properties such as high strength, heat resistance and flame retardant is rapidly increasing.
At present, production of engineering plastics in highly industrialized countries such as United States and Germany is far ahead of global level, and it is region with better development of engineering plastics in the world. World-renowned engineering plastics manufacturers mainly include DuPont, Dow, BASF, Rhodia, Mitsubishi, Teijin and other companies.
From perspective competition pattern of subdivided products, DuPont is the world's largest producer of nylon resin, SABIC (after acquisition of GE Plastics Group) is the world's largest producer of modified PC and PPO; Germany's BASF has strong competitiveness in the field of automotive engineering plastics.
Chart 2: Layout of companies in engineering plastics industry in major regions of the world

In recent years, with large-scale and large-scale construction of new engineering plastics plants in my country, some original small-scale, intermittent, backward process routes and lack of competition have gradually withdrawn from market.
From perspective of enterprise types, domestic engineering plastics enterprises are mainly foreign-funded and Sino-foreign joint ventures, followed by state-owned, private and other types of enterprises. At present, my country's major engineering plastics manufacturers include Shenma Group, China National Chemical Bluestar Group, Yuntianhua and other large-scale state-owned enterprises; at the same time, international well-known manufacturers such as DuPont, Bayer, Teijin, and Mitsubishi have invested in building factories in my country and expanded their scale, becoming important participants in my country's engineering plastics enterprises; development of private enterprises such as Xinjiang Lanshan Tunhe, Jiangyin He Shili, and Sichuan Deyang is also relatively prominent.

 

Chart 3: Leading engineering plastics enterprises in major domestic regions

From perspective of enterprise competition pattern of subdivided products, global polyamide engineering plastics manufacturers mainly include INVISTA, Ascend, DuPont, BASF and so on. From perspective of domestic competition pattern, domestic PA66 manufacturers mainly include INVISTA, Shenma Group, Jiangsu Huayang, etc. In terms of PA6, main domestic enterprises include Zhongjin New Materials, Haiyang Chemical Fiber, Luxi Chemical, Xinhui Meida, etc. .

At present, PC production technology is controlled by a few large international factories. In recent years, although domestic manufacturers such as Zhejiang Dafeng Chemical and Luxi Chemical have successively put into production, there is still a lot of gap between their production technology and international large factories. Judging from production capacity of major domestic PC manufacturers, major manufacturers include Covestro, Luxi Chemical, and Zhejiang Petrochemical.

International POM production is mainly concentrated in developed countries such as United States, Germany, Japan, and Netherlands. Domestic POM enterprises mainly focus on introduction of technology. Judging from production capacity of major domestic POM manufacturers, main manufacturers include Yuntianhua, Shenhua Ningmei, and Tianye Chemical.

Global PBT manufacturers are mainly concentrated in United States, Western Europe, Japan and South Korea. Main manufacturers are Celanese, Ticona, Teijin, Toray, Bayer and so on. Judging from production capacity of major domestic PBT manufacturers, major manufacturers include Changchun Chemical, Kanghui Petrochemical, Wuxi Xingsheng, Yizheng Chemical Fiber, Zhejiang Meiyuan, and Lanshan Tunhe.

PPO is one of engineering plastics with the highest import dependence in China, and has long relied on imports for a long time. At present, there are only five companies in the world that truly master industrial production technology of 10,000-ton PPO, including Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), Japan's Asahi Kasei, Japan's Mitsubishi Gas Chemical, China Bluestar's Nantong Xingchen Synthetic Materials Co., Ltd. and Xinbao New Materials Co., Ltd.

At present, industrialization of PI, PPA, LCP, PEEK and other varieties has been preliminarily realized in China, but there is a big gap compared with foreign advanced levels. Industry as a whole is still in the early stage of development, and there are many difficulties in the process of industrialization of some technologies. Major global and domestic manufacturers of special engineering plastics are as follows:
Chart 5: Global and domestic major manufacturers of special engineering plastics

In recent years, with continuous technological and product innovation of related companies in the industry, localization of engineering plastics has accelerated. Under background of technological research and development of enterprises, accelerated development of engineering plastics downstream application industries, especially strategic emerging industries, it is expected that self-sufficiency rate of raw materials and production level of engineering plastics products will continue to improve. In addition, with improvement of requirements for lightweight, high strength, high temperature resistance, shock absorption, sealing, etc. in the fields of automobiles, modern rail transit, aerospace and other fields, high performance may be key research and development direction of enterprises.

 

Chart 6: Development trend of engineering plastics enterprises in my country