A technological breakthrough covering the entire polyester fiber industry chain is reshaping the competitive landscape of China's chemical fiber sector. The 2025 National Science and Technology Progress Award First Prize was awarded to the 'Key Technologies for Green and Intelligent Manufacturing of the Polyester Fiber Industry Chain' project, jointly completed by Tongkun Group, Donghua University, and eight other institutions. This marks the first time the highest honor has been granted for a full-chain technology in general fiber within the textile chemical fiber field.
China's chemical fiber output accounts for 70% of global production, with polyester fiber ranking first among all categories, often called the 'industrial staple' of textiles. The core significance of this award-winning project lies in its scope: it is not a partial innovation in a single link but a complete restructuring of the entire process from PTA to polyester fiber to end products. This signals that China's polyester fiber industry is transitioning from scale advantages to technological advantages.
Three Dimensions of Technological Breakthrough
The project was led by Donghua University researcher Wang Huaping as the first completer, with deep involvement from a team including Chinese Academy of Sciences Academician Zhu Meifang, in collaboration with leading enterprises like Tongkun Group and multiple research institutions, completed over a decade of collaborative research. Its technology system can be broken down into three core dimensions:
- **Green Manufacturing**: Pioneered a direct PTA-PET coupled low-carbon manufacturing model, developed environmentally friendly titanium-based catalysts and engineering applications, and established a full lifecycle green standard for polyester fiber. This dimension directly addresses the emission reduction pressure on the chemical fiber industry under the 'dual carbon' goals.
- **Intelligent Manufacturing**: Completed full-process automation equipment upgrades, achieved large-scale domestic replacement of DCS control systems, and established an intelligent manufacturing system integrating process and quality control. This means the digital level of domestic chemical fiber factories is approaching international benchmarks.
- **Service-oriented Manufacturing**: Pioneered a 'multi-head, multi-tail' series-parallel composite polymerization technology platform, creating a modular digital linkage system for polymerization, spinning, and texturing processes, enabling customized production of differentiated polyester fiber products and multi-region collaborative agile manufacturing.
The advanced nature of this technology architecture lies in its ability to simultaneously address three industry transformation pain points—greening, digitalization, and flexibility—forming a replicable and scalable industrial upgrade solution.
Industrial Implementation and Economic Benefits
To date, the project has formed a complete independent intellectual property system including 76 authorized invention patents, 10 software copyrights, and 14 national and industry standards. An expert panel of academicians assessed the overall technology as reaching the international leading level.
More noteworthy is its industrial implementation effect. Related results have been promoted in industrial bases in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Xinjiang, and in over ten industry units, cumulatively generating over 200 billion yuan in new sales, over 10 billion yuan in profits and taxes, and earning $1.8 billion in export foreign exchange. It has also significantly reduced industry energy consumption and defect rates. As the lead unit, Tongkun Group, leveraging the project's demonstration effect, was selected for the first batch of national 'Zero Waste Enterprise' typical cases and recognized as 'National Service-oriented Manufacturing Demonstration Enterprise' and 'National Excellent Level Intelligent Manufacturing Demonstration Factory.'
For buyers and downstream factories, this means systematic improvements in the supply stability, quality consistency, and green compliance of polyester fiber. Particularly for export-oriented enterprises, they will directly benefit from the international certification advantages brought by the full lifecycle green standard.
Industry Insights from Industry-Academia Collaboration
The lineup of completing units for this award-winning project itself is a model of industrial collaboration: Tongkun Group led on the enterprise side, Donghua University led on the academic side, plus research forces like Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, forming a closed loop of 'enterprises posing problems, universities solving them, and industry verifying them.'
Historically, the textile chemical fiber field has seen several landmark achievements win the National Science and Technology Progress First Prize, including the 2017 technology for thousand-ton dry-jet wet-spinning carbon fiber and the 2014 digital automatic dyeing technology for yarn packages. However, this award is unique because it focuses on the full chain of general fiber—directly impacting the overall competitiveness of the chemical fiber industry.
Hidden Value of International Collaboration
The International Science and Technology Cooperation Award announced simultaneously was granted to Professor Elsa Reichmanis, a distinguished chair professor at Lehigh University in the U.S. Since 2013, she has deeply collaborated with Donghua University's State Key Laboratory for Advanced Fiber Materials, co-cultivating multiple talents who have entered national talent programs, and co-publishing 18 high-level papers.
The industry insight from this award is that China's independent innovation in the chemical fiber industry is not done in isolation but builds a technology moat through open cooperation. The deep involvement of top international scholars provides irreplaceable intellectual support for domestic fiber materials discipline construction and talent cultivation.