Introduction to the development history of polyoxymethylene plastics in our country

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An introduction to the development history of polyoxymethylene plastics in China. Source: China Plastic Packaging Network. Author: The development of POM in China began in 1959, around the same time as research on this material was carried out by DuPont and Ticona. In the early 1960s, research on homopolymerous polyoxymethylene in our country came to a halt; thereafter, domestic production and research on polyoxymethylene focused mainly on copolymerous polyoxymethylene. In 1965, the Shanghai Solvent Factory began trial production of copolymerized formaldehyde. 　　Hu Qizhong, deputy chief engineer at Shanghai Solvent Factory, said that from the 1980s to the 1990s, polyoxymethylene was the most promising among the five major engineering plastics for developing large-scale production facilities through state-owned technology. Some domestic technological development efforts are indeed quite close to being put into industrial application. 　　However, the fluctuations in methanol prices around 1994 had a significant impact on this process — rising oil prices caused methanol prices to soar, and some domestic companies were unable to bear the increased costs and thus struggled to continue operating. 　　At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, the then Ministry of Chemical Industry shifted its focus to introducing foreign investment; foreign companies were allowed to form joint ventures with domestic firms, after previously being prohibited from investing in China. DuPont Company arrived upon hearing the news and discussed cooperation with the solvent factory. DuPont has reached the highest level in the world in the development of homopolymerized polyoxymethylene, but the focus of solvent manufacturers at that time was not on homopolymerized polyoxymethylene but on copolymerized polyoxymethylene. Thus, the solvent factory revealed to DuPont’s competitor, American Cyanamid, the news that DuPont intended to cooperate with them. Upon learning of this, Seranis Company immediately sent people to China to discuss cooperation with the solvent factory for the production of copolymerized formaldehyde. 　　However, the negotiations ultimately failed. “The main reason the negotiations failed was that the Ministry of Chemical Industry at the time wanted Celanese to form a joint venture with the Shijingou Joint Chemical Plant of Jihua Company. However, the situation at the Ishii-gou Combined Chemical Plant dissatisfied the foreign parties. Due to the refusal of both sides to compromise, the joint venture never came to fruition. ” 　　After joint ventures became impossible, a minister from the Ministry of Chemicals said to the technicians at the solvent factory, “It’s up to you to develop polyoxymethylene.” ” 　　Unfortunately, the solvent factory faced a difficult path ahead. Among these factors, in addition to state-owned enterprises not giving enough importance to research and development, failed collaborations with foreign companies also delayed things once again. Both the second and third negotiations failed one after another. Over the past 10 years, none of the negotiations carried out by various foreign and domestic companies have been successful. 　　Since 2000, with the formulation of new rounds of plans, many domestic organizations have been seeking opportunities for introduction. Apart from Asahi Kasei of Japan, which has expressed willingness to transfer technology, and BASF, which intended to take action in Yangtze River Delta, other foreign owners of polyoxymethylene technology prefer to set up factories in China on their own, adopting a stance of doing things independently – such as the Nantong project. It remains to be seen whether Asahi Kasei is willing to discuss this again. Therefore, the opportunities to introduce advanced foreign POM technology are becoming increasingly rare. 　　Dumping has been successful. Meanwhile, for a long time foreign companies have sold POM in China at low prices, causing the price of POM in the Chinese market to remain at a low level, with the price per ton being about 1,000 dollars lower than in the United States, Japan, and Europe, which has had a severe impact on domestic enterprises. 　　This strategy made it impossible for domestic companies to compete with foreign POM producers. At that time, many companies had no understanding of anti-dumping measures, and there were no efficient channels for dealing with them – anti-dumping seemed useless as well; the companies were small and scattered, their technology was backward, and before they could develop, foreign products already dominated the market. 　　For this reason, the POM market in our country has seen phenomena that are hard for outsiders to imagine: due to prices that are lower than those in the international market, despite the domestic market relying almost entirely on imports, hundreds of tons are exported each year. Low prices result in poor evaluation data for new projects of domestic companies, making it difficult for them to get approval for such projects; only after domestic companies achieve a certain level of production is it possible to counteract this through anti-dumping measures. Now, having foreign-owned enterprises carry out projects first will make this possibility extremely slim. 　　And this partnership between Puli and Mitsubishi has further raised concerns among industry insiders. Boride is the largest supplier of POM in China, with Mitsubishi in second place; previously, the two competed fiercely against each other. With the merger of the two companies, a monopoly trend is likely to emerge in China’s POM market. 　　With the rapid development of China’s automotive, electronics, and machinery manufacturing industries, the demand for POM has increased significantly. POM has become a strategic material in China, making it imperative to develop its own POM industry. “It is foreseeable that domestic POM prices will definitely rise again in the future. ”Hu Qizhong said. 　　Hu Qizhong said that under the current circumstances, China can improve its existing technologies and equipment while making efforts to introduce advanced foreign technologies, and accelerate the localization of POM production on a substantial scale, thereby ensuring that **economic security remains unthreatened.