China's polyester fiber industry is transitioning from scale leadership to technological autonomy. On July 8, the 2025 National Science and Technology Progress Award First Prize was awarded for the first time to a project covering the entire polyester fiber industry chain—the 'Key Technologies for Green and Intelligent Manufacturing of the Polyester Fiber Industry Chain,' led by Tongkun Group in collaboration with Donghua University and nine other institutions. This marks not only a return of the textile chemical fiber sector to the top national science honor after years but also the establishment of a complete autonomous technological moat for China's largest generic fiber.
Three Pillars of the Full-Chain Tech System
Polyester fiber accounts for the largest share of China's chemical fiber output, which itself represents 70% of global production. While the industry has previously won national science awards in specialty fibers and carbon fiber, a systematic breakthrough in the largest category—polyester fiber—was lacking. The core value of this project lies in constructing a three-in-one technology system covering green manufacturing, smart manufacturing, and service-oriented manufacturing.
On the green front, the project pioneered a PTA-PET direct coupling low-carbon manufacturing model, replacing traditional heavy metal catalysts with environmentally friendly titanium-based catalysts and establishing a full lifecycle green standard. This means polyester fiber production can significantly reduce energy consumption and emissions, directly supporting the textile industry's carbon neutrality timeline. In smart manufacturing, full-process automation upgrades and domestic substitution of DCS control systems enable integrated process and quality control, forming a rapidly replicable 'China solution'—offering downstream buyers more stable quality and shorter lead times.
Service-oriented manufacturing is the project's most forward-looking design. Through a 'multi-head, multi-tail' series-parallel composite polymerization technology platform, enterprises can modularly switch between different polyester fiber specifications, achieving flexible 'one plant, multiple products.' This capability directly reduces trial costs and inventory risks for brands in an era of fast fashion and rapidly evolving functional fabrics.
Industrial Impact of a Decade-Long Collaboration
Led by Donghua University researcher Wang Huaping and involving Tongkun Group and multiple research institutions, the project took over ten years to complete. It has generated 76 authorized invention patents, 14 national and industry standards, and has been implemented in industrial bases in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Xinjiang. Public data shows cumulative new sales exceeding 200 billion yuan, profits and taxes over 10 billion yuan, and export earnings of 1.8 billion US dollars—behind these numbers lies the real industrial transformation from 'follower' to 'leader' in the polyester fiber chain.
For Tongkun Group, this award is not only a technological endorsement but also a direct competitive advantage. Leveraging the project's demonstration effect, Tongkun was selected as one of China's first 'zero-waste enterprise' cases and recognized as a national service-oriented manufacturing demonstration enterprise and smart manufacturing demonstration factory. This sends a clear signal: in the textile industry, green and smart initiatives are no longer cost burdens but strategic assets that yield tangible economic returns.
Deeper Signal from the International Science and Technology Cooperation Award
At the same ceremony, Professor Elsa Reichmanis, a U.S. National Academy of Engineering member and chair of the International Advisory Committee of Donghua University's State Key Laboratory for Advanced Fiber Materials, received the中华人民共和国 International Science and Technology Cooperation Award. She has long promoted U.S.-China cooperation in fiber materials science and served as academic committee chair for multiple International Conferences on Advanced Fiber and Polymer Materials. This award indicates that while achieving independent innovation, China's textile industry still highly values and actively integrates into global science and technology cooperation networks—especially in basic materials research and high-end talent cultivation.
For domestic textile enterprises, this reminds us that maintaining open cooperation channels is more important than ever amid technology blockades and deglobalization trends. The talents co-cultivated by Donghua University and Reichmanis have been selected for national talent programs, a model worth emulating by more companies.