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China’s first project featuring independent intellectual property rights, namely the “Development of Industrial Production Technology for 20,000 tons per year of styrene-butadiene transparent impact-resistant resin,” passed a technical appraisal organized and conducted by the Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology on December 23 in Guangzhou. The localization of this complete set of industrial technologies, achieved through the joint efforts of Guangdong Zhonghe Chemical Plastics Co., Ltd. and Jiangsu Shengjie Co., Ltd., has broken the foreign countries’ long-standing technological monopoly in the field of complex products featuring multi-block, multi-modal structures and microphase separation, raising China’s industrial technology for lithium-based polymers to a new level. At present, the price of similar foreign products in the domestic market has dropped from 28,000 to 32,000 yuan per ton before the installation of such systems in China, to 17,000 to 19,000 yuan per ton at present. According to Liu Qing, the chief technical officer of Guangdong Zhonghe Chemical Plastics’ 20,000-ton/year styrene-butadiene transparent impact-resistant resin production project, styrene-butadiene transparent impact-resistant resin is a new type of polymer material synthesized from monomers such as styrene and butadiene using modern \"anion-mediated reactive polymerization\" methods. This product features being environmentally friendly, having excellent comprehensive performance, readily available raw materials, easy processing, and a wide range of applications. It is widely used in the manufacture of transparent, hard, and flexible products such as electrical appliances, instruments, medical supplies, food packaging, household items, and plastic alloys. The current annual demand in the domestic market is around 200,000 to 250,000 tons, with an average annual growth rate of about 10% expected in the future. The appraisal committee, composed of Academician Wang Fosong and Academician Yan Deyue from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with renowned experts and professors from East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Dalian University of Technology, Yanshan Petrochemical Corporation, and other institutions, carefully listened to the technical development reports, product quality inspection reports, user application reports, and benefit analysis reports presented by the project team. After reviewing the relevant documents and some experts visiting the production site, and following discussions and on-site Q&A sessions, the committee unanimously agreed that this project has developed the \"two-reactor series intermittent batch polymerization\" technology, high-efficiency reactors, and optimized control integration techniques. It has also enabled the industrial production of 20,000 tons per year of styrene-butadiene transparent impact-resistant resin, representing the first time in China that such technology with independent intellectual property rights has been developed. This technology features an adjustable molecular structure, a high monomer conversion rate (over 99%), a high solvent recovery rate (99.8%), easy control of the polymerization temperature (±2°C). The consumption of butadiene and styrene is kept between 1,001–1,006 kilograms per ton, while the solvent consumption is 5–10 kilograms per ton. The amount of initiator, n-butyl lithium, used is 1.0–1.1 kilograms per ton. It also has a low total energy consumption (250 kilograms of standard oil per ton), stable process operation, and meets environmental requirements. Energy and material consumption have reached international advanced levels. For the first time in the country, industrial production technologies at a scale of 10,000 tons per year have been successfully developed for the direct drying of lithium-based polymers and their granulation underwater. An industrial process route that utilizes two-stage concentration along with a counter-rotating, non-intermeshing twin-screw extruder was adopted; the residual styrene content in the final product is less than 10 μg.g-1, which meets the standards for food packaging materials (≤50 μg.g-1). The appraisal committee believes that the products manufactured by this set of equipment feature high light transmittance (>90%), low haze (<3%), and stable quality. The product has been tested by the **Petroleum and Organic Raw Materials Synthetic Resin Quality Supervision and Inspection Center, and meets the requirements of the enterprise standard Q/SGC20.0.1-2006. The key performance indicators have reached an advanced level comparable to those of similar foreign products. The appraisal committee recommends paying close attention to technological developments abroad, developing new products, and expanding the application areas of existing products. It is understood that the 20,000 tons per year styrene-butadiene transparent impact-resistant resin production facility of Guangdong Zhonghe Chemical Plastics Co., Ltd., with a total investment of 247 million yuan, was officially put into operation in October 2004. After more than 3 years of stable industrial operation, nearly 50,000 tons of products have been produced in total. Users have given positive feedback, and the operation has generated significant economic and social benefits. This marks China’s full mastery of the most complex advanced industrial polymerization production technology for lithium-based products, filling the gap in such industrial production technology within the country. The annual after-tax profit of this facility is approximately 20 million yuan, and it is expected that the entire investment will be recouped in about 6 years.