A technological breakthrough covering the entire polyester fiber industry chain is reshaping the global competitive landscape of China's chemical fiber sector. The 2025 National Science and Technology Progress Award First Prize was awarded to the project 'Key Technologies for Green and Intelligent Manufacturing of the Polyester Fiber Industry Chain', jointly completed by Tongkun Group, Donghua University, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, and seven other units. This marks the first time in years that the textile chemical fiber field has claimed the top national science honor, signaling that China has built an unassailable moat of proprietary technology in the core variety of chemical fibers, which accounts for 70% of global production.
Background: From Point Breakthroughs to Full-Chain Dominance
The significance of the National First Prize is clear within the textile industry. In 2017, a carbon fiber project led by Zhongfu Shenying broke international monopolies; in 2014, Kangpingna Group's digital dyeing technology automated the entire printing and dyeing process. This latest winning project targets the 'staple' of the textile industry: polyester fiber. Public data shows that China produces 70% of the world's chemical fibers, with polyester fiber ranking first in output. This means that any upgrade in polyester fiber technology directly impacts the cost structure, quality ceiling, and green transition speed of downstream trillion-level markets in fabrics, apparel, and home textiles.
The project's technical route is not a single-link improvement but a systemic reconstruction of the entire chain. Wang Huaping, a researcher at Donghua University and the project's lead, led a team including Tongkun Group and other industry leaders for over a decade to achieve three major breakthroughs: green manufacturing, intelligent manufacturing, and service-oriented manufacturing. On the green front, the team pioneered a PTA-PET direct-coupled low-carbon manufacturing model and developed environmentally friendly titanium-based catalysts to reduce pollution at the source. On the intelligent front, they achieved domestic substitution of DCS control systems, establishing an integrated process-quality control system. On the service-oriented front, they created a 'multi-head, multi-tail' series-parallel composite polymerization technology platform, enabling flexible customization of differentiated products and coordinated production across regions.
Industry Impact: The Logic Behind a Trillion-Yuan Increment
The value of technological breakthroughs ultimately lands on industrial benefits. According to publicly available industry data, the project's results have been deployed in over 10 enterprises in industrial bases across Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Xinjiang, generating cumulative new sales exceeding 200 billion RMB, total profits and taxes over 10 billion RMB, and export earnings of 1.8 billion USD. For buyers and factories, this means three direct changes:
- Optimized cost structure: The green low-carbon model reduces energy and raw material consumption; the substitution of titanium-based catalysts lowers the cost of traditional heavy metal catalysts while mitigating environmental compliance risks.
- Enhanced quality consistency: Full-process automation and DCS localization improve precision in process parameter control, significantly reducing defect rates—a tangible benefit for fabric buyers seeking batch consistency.
- Increased supply flexibility: The 'multi-head, multi-tail' platform allows factories to quickly switch product specifications, enabling small-batch, multi-variety customized production, matching the fast-fashion and e-commerce demand for rapid response.
Another noteworthy signal is that Tongkun Group, the project's lead, has been selected as one of the first national 'Zero-Waste Enterprise' cases and recognized as a 'National Service-Oriented Manufacturing Demonstration Enterprise' and 'National Outstanding Intelligent Manufacturing Demonstration Factory'. This indicates that policy is positioning such technology-leading enterprises as benchmarks for industrial upgrading, likely channeling more support and standard-setting influence their way.