The 2025 National Science and Technology Awards list has brought a historic breakthrough for the textile chemical fiber field: the project 'Key Technologies for Green and Smart Manufacturing of Polyester Fiber Industry Chain,' led by Tongkun Group and jointly completed with ten units including Donghua University and Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, won the first prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award. This marks the third time the textile industry has won this highly prestigious award, following the carbon fiber project in 2017 and the package dyeing project in 2014. However, this achievement is particularly significant—it signals that China has achieved independent control over the entire general fiber industry chain technology system.
Technological Breakthrough: From 'Industrial Staple' to Full-Chain Autonomy
Polyester fiber is known as the 'industrial staple' of the textile industry, with China's chemical fiber output accounting for 70% of the global total, and polyester fiber output leading among all chemical fiber types. For a long time, core technologies in this field relied heavily on imports, posing risks to industry chain security. The award-winning project, led by Donghua University researcher Wang Huaping as the first completer and deeply participated by teams including Academician Zhu Meifang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, involved over a decade of collaborative industry-university-research efforts, achieving core technological breakthroughs in three dimensions:
- **Green Manufacturing**: Pioneered a PTA-PET direct-coupled low-carbon manufacturing model, developed environmentally friendly titanium-based catalysts and engineering application technologies, and established a full lifecycle green standard for polyester fiber, completing the low-carbon production process from raw materials to finished products.
- **Smart Manufacturing**: Completed full-process automation equipment upgrades, achieved large-scale domestic substitution of DCS control systems, and established a smart manufacturing system integrating process and quality control, forming a replicable and scalable industrial upgrade solution.
- **Service-oriented Manufacturing**: Pioneered a 'multi-head multi-tail' series-parallel composite polymerization technology platform, built a modular digital linkage system, and realized differentiated polyester fiber product customization and multi-region collaborative agile manufacturing.
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. The overall technology has been identified by an expert panel as reaching international leading level.
Industrial Impact: Industry Reshaping Behind 200 Billion Yuan in Sales
The ultimate test of technological breakthroughs is industrialization effectiveness. Public data shows that the relevant achievements have been promoted and applied in industrial bases such as Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Xinjiang, as well as in over ten units in the industry, achieving cumulative new sales of over 200 billion yuan, profits and taxes of over 10 billion yuan, and export earnings of 1.8 billion US dollars. Behind these figures lies a substantive leap for the polyester fiber industry from 'following' to 'leading.'
For downstream buyers, this means significant improvements in the quality stability and customization capabilities of domestic polyester fiber products, along with reduced dependence on imported high-end polyester raw materials. For export enterprises, the reduced energy consumption and defect rates brought by green smart manufacturing will directly translate into cost advantages and brand premiums. Taking Tongkun Group as an example, thanks to the demonstration effect of this project, it has been selected as one of the first batch of national 'Zero-Waste Enterprise' typical cases and awarded as a 'National Service-oriented Manufacturing Demonstration Enterprise' and 'National Excellent Smart Manufacturing Demonstration Factory,' providing a reference transformation model for the industry.
International Perspective: Global Layout Behind the Cooperation Award
Alongside the first prize for scientific and technological progress, the People's Republic of China International Science and Technology Cooperation Award was also announced, awarded to Professor Elsa Reichmanis of Lehigh University in the United States, who has long promoted Sino-US scientific exchanges. Since 2013, she has deeply cooperated with the State Key Laboratory of Advanced Fiber Materials at Donghua University, training multiple individuals selected for national talent programs, co-publishing 18 high-level academic papers, and promoting the International Conference on Advanced Fibers and Polymer Materials to become the world's largest fiber-themed academic event.
This award not only recognizes individual contributions but also sends a signal: China's textile technology is shifting from 'bringing in' to 'two-way exchange.' In advantageous fields like polyester fiber, Chinese enterprises have the ability to export technical standards; while in frontier fiber materials, international cooperation remains necessary to maintain close alignment with the global innovation chain.