At the 2025 National Science and Technology Awards Conference, the textile chemical fiber sector achieved its highest honor: the project 'Key Technologies for Green and Intelligent Manufacturing of Polyester Fiber Industry Chain' won the First Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award. Led by Tongkun Group as the primary completing unit, in collaboration with Donghua University, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, and seven other institutions, this achievement, after more than a decade of collaborative research, fills the gap in independent technology for the entire polyester fiber industrial chain. It marks a substantial step for China's chemical fiber industry from 'scale leadership' to 'technology leadership.'
Dual Drive of Green and Intelligence
The project focuses on polyester fiber, the 'staple food' of the textile industry, achieving core technological breakthroughs in three directions: green manufacturing, intelligent manufacturing, and service-oriented manufacturing. On the green front, the research team pioneered a PTA-PET direct coupling low-carbon manufacturing model, developed environmentally friendly titanium-based catalysts, and established a full lifecycle green standard, creating a complete low-carbon production pathway from raw materials to finished products. In intelligent manufacturing, they completed the upgrade of fully automated equipment, achieved large-scale domestic substitution of DCS control systems, and built an intelligent system integrating process and quality control. Service-oriented manufacturing, through a 'multi-head and multi-tail' series-parallel composite polymerization technology platform, enables customized production of differentiated products and collaborative agile manufacturing across multiple regions.
The industrial impact of these technological breakthroughs is significant. The project has generated 76 authorized invention patents, 14 national and industry standards, and has been implemented in over 10 units across industrial bases in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Xinjiang. It has accumulated over 200 billion yuan in new sales, over 10 billion yuan in profits and taxes, and $1.8 billion in export earnings. More importantly, it has significantly reduced industry energy consumption and defect rates, providing a replicable 'China solution' for the green transformation of the chemical fiber industry.
Continuation of National Honors in Chemical Fiber
This award is not the first time the textile industry has won the first prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award. In 2017, the project 'Key Technologies for Industrialization of Kiloton-Level Dry-Jet Wet Spinning High-Strength/Medium-Modulus Carbon Fiber' by Zhongfu Shenying and Donghua University broke foreign monopolies. In 2014, Shandong Kangpingna Group's digital automatic dyeing technology for cheese yarn pushed the printing and dyeing industry into the intelligent stage. Additionally, projects like dry spinning polyimide fiber preparation and efficient recycling of waste polyester have won second prizes. From special fibers to general fibers, from intelligent equipment to green processes, the textile industry has formed a multi-layered technological breakthrough landscape.
The significance of this project winning the first prize lies in its coverage of the entire industrial chain of polyester fiber, the largest category of chemical fibers, from raw materials, polymerization, spinning to post-processing, establishing an independent and controllable technology system. This directly contributes to stabilizing the domestic industrial foundation, preventing industrial chain relocation, and supporting the 'dual carbon' goals.
International Cooperation Boosts Discipline
In the same batch, the International Science and Technology Cooperation Award of the People's Republic of China was awarded to Professor Elsa Reichmanis from Lehigh University, USA. She has long collaborated deeply with the State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials at Donghua University, promoting joint graduate training and research, and has served as the chair of the academic committee for multiple international conferences on advanced fibers and polymer materials. This award indicates that while China's textile technology innovates independently, it continues to leverage international cooperation to inject global intellectual resources into the discipline's development.