development of new chemical materials is aimed at green and high-end development

Recently, at the 2025 China Petrochemical Industry High Quality Development Conference on Fine Chemicals and New Materials, several experts shared their research results on chemical new materials around the trends of greening and high-end development. Zhao Sitao, Executive Chairman and Secretary General of Hebei Fine Chemical Industry Association, pointed out that greening and high-end are important path choices for the transformation and upgrading of the chemical industry, and are also core issues shared by the entire industry.

Du Kai, Manager of the Technical Marketing Department of Sinopec (Beijing) Chemical Research Institute Co., Ltd., pointed out that the traditional production process of PET fluorinated backsheet for solar cells has poor environmental protection and recyclability, and high cost. More importantly, PET is prone to hydrolysis and fracture under high humidity and heat conditions. Sinopec has proposed a new environmental solution, using polyolefin materials as battery backboards. This material has lower density and can save 26% of raw material consumption. It also has the characteristics of easy recycling and good environmental protection, which can effectively address the problem of retired photovoltaic modules. "Du Kai said.

In the field of energy storage, lithium battery technology is constantly advancing towards high energy density and high safety. Associate Professor Li Le from Hebei University of Technology introduced: "Solid state lithium batteries are based on the high stability characteristics of solid electrolytes, which can be compatible with higher voltage positive electrode materials and higher specific capacity lithium containing negative electrode materials, thereby further improving the energy density of lithium batteries. At the same time, using non flammable solid electrolytes instead of organic electrolytes can significantly improve the safety of lithium batteries." Li Le mentioned that the current technology of solid state lithium batteries is not yet mature, and the cost of electrolyte materials is high, which needs further research.

The greening and high-end development of carbon fiber have also become research hotspots. Carbon fiber is widely used in fields such as aerospace, new energy, and engineering machinery. Developing high value-added and high-end carbon fiber products and extending them downstream has become a key direction for the development of carbon fiber enterprises, "said Professor Niu Wenbin of Dalian University of Technology. His team has broken through the technical bottleneck of difficult coloring of carbon fiber and improved the stability of interfacial chemical reactions, and developed uniformly colored carbon fiber with better heat reflection effect than pure carbon cloth, which can be used as insulation and cooling materials; We have developed gradient structured carbon fibers with strong mechanical tensile strength and stability, which can be applied to various bending, deformation, and relaxation states of human skin and can be used in flexible wearable electric heating management devices.

The independent research and development of high-end polyolefins has also become an important lever to promote the high-end development of the industry. Although there is currently an oversupply of bulk polyethylene and polypropylene products, there is a strong demand for high-tech and high value-added high-end polyolefin materials in high-end industries such as aerospace, new energy, electronic vehicles, and biomedicine. Currently, China's self-sufficiency rate of high-end polyolefin materials is relatively low, and most products rely on imports. Associate Professor Guo Fang from Dalian University of Technology introduced that the team is developing various metallocene catalysts for producing polyolefin materials, as well as cyclic olefin copolymers and thermoplastic elastomers POE, to promote breakthroughs in the localization of high-end polyolefin materials in China.