News Information

In late July, the construction of the 100,000-ton new materials production project of Panjin Sanli Zhongke New Materials Co., Ltd. entered the final stage, and it is striving to start trial production with materials in September this year. This is a project successfully transformed by the Liaoning Panjin Fine Chemical Pilot Base across the "Darwin Dead Sea". The three-step MMA technology for ethylene in this project has solved the key technical problem of one-step oxidation esterification, and its unique technical route is internationally leading.

The "Darwin Dead Sea" is a phenomenon in the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, used to describe the disconnection between technological research and development and market production. From technological invention to application and then to industrialization, it requires long-term repeated verification and a large amount of capital investment. This middle ground that neither research institutions nor enterprises are willing to touch is like a "Dead Sea" where even fish, shrimp and aquatic plants cannot survive, blocking the pace of transforming scientific and technological achievements into productive forces.

Panjin, as a petrochemical city, boasts abundant oil and gas resources and over 300 petrochemical and fine chemical enterprises, with a solid industrial foundation. In 2017, the Panjin Municipal Government, Panjin Fine Chemical Industry Development Zone and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences jointly established Liaoning Fine Chemical Industry Technology Development Co., LTD. The company explored market-oriented construction and operation models, innovated the mechanism for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, focused on the pilot production stage, and highlighted the construction of modern pilot production capabilities. Build a technology transfer chain of "market demand - basic research and development - pilot production of projects - industrialization - market guidance".

Zhang Jianguo, the general manager of Liaoning Panjin Fine Chemical Industry Technology Development Co., LTD., introduced that the pilot plant base is an important platform for the enterprise to cross the "Darwin Dead Sea". Pilot production is the test before the product is officially put into production, that is, the smaller-scale test before the product is mass-produced on a large scale. The construction of pilot production bases is of great significance for product cost control, risk reduction, cycle shortening and sustainable development.

In recent years, the pilot plant base has been fully committed to infrastructure construction, improving supporting facilities such as laboratories and testing and analysis rooms, and initiating the construction of high-standard pilot plant workshops and the intelligent platform of the pilot plant base. In 2021, an additional investment of over 50 million yuan was made in Area C of the first phase to complete the exterior wall renovation of the hazardous chemicals warehouse, the construction of the fire protection system and the GDS control room, etc. Efficiently complete the construction of the main buildings in Area D, finish all the pilot workshops and public supporting facilities as soon as possible, and achieve mutual complementarity between areas D and C and maximize the benefits of the 22 pilot workshops. Make overall arrangements for the upgrading and construction of Areas A and B to provide a solid guarantee for the medium and long-term development of the pilot base.

At present, the Fine Chemical Pilot Base in Panjin, Liaoning Province is fully committed to building a national-level fine chemical pilot base that is "based in Panjin, facing Liaoning, radiating Northeast China and serving the whole country", striving to cross the "Darwin's Dead Sea" of scientific and technological achievement transformation.

Zhang Jianguo said that there are a total of 26 pilot projects in the pilot base that have achieved industrialization, are currently undergoing pilot production, are under construction, or are in reserve. There are already 7 industrial-scale pilot projects, 3 in progress, 5 under construction and 11 in reserve. Among them, the 1,600-ton/year new material intermediate project of Panjin Greenkimer Technology Co., Ltd. was put into operation in January 2023. The project achieved an output value of 120 million yuan in 2023 and is expected to achieve an output value of 200 million yuan in 2024. As of May 2024, it has contributed 8.98 million yuan in taxes.

Entering the C5 workshop of the pilot base, a pilot project for a 100-cubic-meter intelligent general structured packing catalyst is underway. This catalyst is suitable for harsh working conditions such as oil extraction, refining and chemical processing, and dyeing and printing in industries containing sulfur and halogens. It will also be simultaneously explored and verified in the "digital" pilot test of chemical projects to achieve digital simulation pilot tests. It is expected that the pilot test will be completed before the end of December this year. Zhang Boyu, director of the office of Liaoning Panjin Fine Chemical Industry Technology Development Co., LTD., said.

It is understood that since the establishment of the first pilot line in 2020, a number of key scientific research achievements have been industrialized here, making significant contributions to the regional economic and social development. Meanwhile, the pilot base has also focused on digital pilot production, introducing digital technologies such as big data, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence, and has established a "Digital Intelligence Center" for the pilot base. At present, functions such as comprehensive services for base business, closed management and monitoring, and early warning and investigation of potential hazards throughout the entire life cycle of pilot projects have been realized.

In the next step, the Panjin Fine Chemical Pilot Base will achieve innovative allocation of various high-quality production factors during the pilot stage. It will focus on both the pilot transformation of "bottleneck" and "revolutionary" technologies and the integrated application of new-generation information technologies. Explore the digitalization of pilot-scale test equipment and processes, optimize test methods and management models, and promote digital technology solutions in intelligent control, smart production and other links. Unearth the value of data, lay out "digital twins", carry out virtual simulation experiments, complete the simulation mapping of physical industries in the virtual space, optimize the equipment processes and procedures in the pilot-scale and industrialization links through simulation, shorten the pilot-scale and technology transfer cycle, and reduce the risks and costs of pilot-scale.