The 2025 National Science and Technology Awards have been announced, with a remarkable achievement from the textile and chemical fiber sector. The project 'Key Technologies for Green and Intelligent Manufacturing in the Polyester Fiber Industry Chain,' led by Tongkun Group in collaboration with Donghua University and nine other institutions, won the First Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award. This is not only the highest-level technological honor in the textile field for the year but also signifies that China's polyester fiber industry, which accounts for over 70% of global production, has moved from point-specific breakthroughs to a full-industry-chain systemic innovation.
Industrial Impact
Polyester fiber, often called the 'industrial staple food' of textiles, has long ranked first among chemical fiber categories, directly affecting the cost and quality of downstream fabrics, garments, and home textiles. Over the past decade, the industry has won major awards in niche areas such as carbon fiber and intelligent dyeing, but this award-winning project covers the entire chain from raw materials to finished products, offering stronger industrial penetration.
Data best illustrates the scale: the project has been implemented in industrial bases in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Xinjiang, as well as over ten enterprises, cumulatively generating over 200 billion yuan in new sales, over 10 billion yuan in profits and taxes, and $1.8 billion in export earnings. This means that a single technology system can drive hundreds of billions in economic growth annually. For buyers, this implies improved supply stability, quality consistency, and cost controllability of polyester fiber—especially the carbon footprint reduction from green manufacturing, which is becoming a hidden cost advantage for exports to markets like the EU.
How Three Technological Dimensions Reshape the Industry Chain
The project team spent over a decade achieving systemic breakthroughs in three dimensions: green, intelligent, and service-oriented manufacturing.
- Green Manufacturing: Pioneered a direct PTA-PET coupling low-carbon model, developed environmentally friendly titanium-based catalysts to replace traditional antimony-based ones, eliminating heavy metal residue issues; also established a full lifecycle green standard, opening the entire low-carbon production process. For dyeing and fabric mills, this means significantly reduced upstream raw material compliance costs and a broader 'green premium' for downstream products.
- Intelligent Manufacturing: Achieved large-scale domestic replacement of DCS control systems, enabling integrated process and quality management. This system has been validated at leading factories like Tongkun, resulting in significantly lower defect rates and reduced energy consumption. For foreign trade companies, this provides a technical foundation for order delivery stability and traceability, strengthening their position in increasingly stringent supply chain audits from European and American clients.
- Service-oriented Manufacturing: Pioneered a 'multi-head, multi-tail' series-parallel composite polymerization technology platform, enabling modular customization of differentiated polyester fiber products. This change directly addresses market demands for 'small batches, diverse varieties, and quick response'—brands can more flexibly develop functional fabrics, while mills can reduce inventory backlogs.
Deep Logic of Industry-University-Research Collaboration
Behind the award-winning project is a decade-long deep integration between universities like Donghua and Zhejiang Sci-Tech University and Tongkun Group. The State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials at Donghua provided foundational research support, with teams led by Academician Zhu Meifang fully involved, ultimately forming a complete intellectual property system including 76 authorized invention patents, 10 software copyrights, and 14 national and industry standards.
Notably, Donghua University also received the People's Republic of China International Science and Technology Cooperation Award, granted to Professor Elsa Reichmanis from Lehigh University. This three-academy academician has long promoted Sino-US cooperation in fiber materials, with several jointly trained scholars now selected into national talent programs. This dual-wheel model of 'domestic breakthroughs + international talent attraction' is becoming the standard path for technological breakthroughs in the textile industry.