A technology project covering the entire polyester fiber value chain has just secured the highest honor in China's science and technology arena. The 2025 National Science and Technology Progress Award (First Class) was granted to the 'Key Technologies for Green and Intelligent Manufacturing of the Polyester Fiber Industry Chain,' led by Tongkun Group in collaboration with Donghua University, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, and seven other entities. Simultaneously, Professor Elsa Reichmanis, Chair of the International Advisory Committee of Donghua University's State Key Laboratory for Advanced Fiber Materials, received the International Science and Technology Cooperation Award of the People's Republic of China, becoming the only foreign scholar to win this honor in the same period.
These two major awards falling simultaneously on the textile and chemical fiber sector send a clear signal: China's polyester fiber industry has shifted from scale advantage to technology dominance, and now occupies a key node in the global fiber materials innovation network.
Industry Impact
Polyester fiber is the 'industrial staple' of the textile industry. China produces over 70% of the world's chemical fibers, with polyester fiber ranking first among all categories. The core breakthrough of this award-winning project lies in breaking down technical barriers across the entire chain from raw materials to end products. The three major technological directions—green manufacturing, intelligent manufacturing, and service-oriented manufacturing—correspond to the industry's most urgent transformation demands: low-carbonization, automation, and flexibility.
Specifically, the project's pioneering PTA-PET direct-coupling low-carbon manufacturing model directly reduces energy consumption and carbon emissions during production. For export companies facing pressure from the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), this means potential reductions in compliance costs. Meanwhile, the full-process automation equipment upgrade and the domestic replacement of DCS control systems provide small and medium-sized chemical fiber factories with a replicable intelligent path, reducing reliance on imported equipment.
More noteworthy is the 'multi-head, multi-tail' series-parallel composite polymerization technology platform. This innovation breaks the limitation of traditional polymerization units that can only produce a single variety, enabling differentiated polyester fiber products to be customized professionally and manufactured flexibly across multiple regions. For downstream fabric companies, this translates into shorter delivery cycles and more agile order response capabilities.
To date, the project has formed a complete independent intellectual property system comprising 76 authorized invention patents, 10 software copyrights, and 14 national and industry standards. It has been promoted and implemented in industrial bases in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Xinjiang, as well as in over 10 enterprises, generating cumulative new sales exceeding 200 billion yuan, profits and taxes exceeding 10 billion yuan, and export earnings of 1.8 billion US dollars. These figures are a true reflection of the chemical fiber industry's transition from 'follower' to 'parallel runner' and then to 'leader.'
Implications of Industry-Academia-Research Collaboration
As the leading unit of the project, Tongkun Group has been selected as one of the first national 'Zero-Waste Enterprise' models and has been recognized as a 'National Service-Oriented Manufacturing Demonstration Enterprise' and a 'National Excellent-Level Intelligent Manufacturing Demonstration Factory.' This is not an isolated case. Looking back, in 2017, the high-performance carbon fiber project led by Zhongfu Shenying also won the First Class Science and Technology Progress Award, breaking foreign technology monopolies. In 2014, Shandong Kangpingna's digital automatic dyeing technology for cheese yarn also won the First Class award.
The commonality among these cases is clear: leading enterprises take charge, supported by university research and multi-disciplinary integration. Researcher Wang Huaping from Donghua University served as the first completer, with Academician Zhu Meifang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences deeply involved, collaborating with Tongkun Group and multiple research institutions over more than a decade of joint research. This model is becoming the standard paradigm for technological innovation in the textile industry.
For small and medium-sized enterprises, this trend means that going it alone on technology is becoming increasingly difficult. Joining industry innovation consortia and sharing technology platforms and standard systems is the realistic choice to reduce costs and enhance competitiveness.