"Upgraded" Super Imitation Cotton

In the future, cotton products mean high-grade products.

When the spot price and futures price of cotton have reached new heights, people turn their attention to the chemical fiber industry again.

This time, not only because of the price difference, the polyester staple fiber, viscose staple fiber and cotton in chemical fiber have the function of mutual substitution, but also because the industry hopes to find a long-term way to make up for the increasingly scarce cotton resources and meet the consumers' "cotton" situation.

Thus,

"Super Imitation cotton" craze

As the name suggests, "super Imitation cotton" means both cotton and cotton.

Simply speaking, "super Imitation cotton" fiber should not only have the characteristics of moisture absorption, sweat absorption and comfortable wearing of cotton, but also have the advantages of wear resistance and high strength.

Of course, the best price is lower than cotton at this stage.

Natural fiber like synthetic fiber is no longer a new thing.

Over the years, the products of chemical fiber like wool, linen and silk have emerged one after another.

Today, chiffon yarn is a silk like masterpiece of synthetic fiber. Artificial fur is a typical representative of acrylic wool like wool.

Moreover, the simulation of chemical fiber has gradually moved from the imitation and high imitation stage to the super simulation stage.

However, chemical fiber Imitation cotton has not been widely popularized.

Industry analysts believe that this is determined by the stage of development of the industry.

Chemical fiber simulation products have the premise of a wide range of applications, one is the characteristics of natural fiber, but the price is relatively cheap; the two is the imitation of natural fiber is a scarce resource, need to make up for the product.

In the past, chemical fiber Imitation cotton did not have these two conditions.

However, in the era of "high cost", the "super Imitation cotton" has become an urgent aspiration of the entire textile industry.

Du Yuzhou, President of the China Textile Industry Association, pointed out at the board of knitwear industry association recently: "in view of the scarcity of cotton, chemical fiber can develop super Imitation cotton to achieve the performance of cotton and surpass it.

Cotton and other natural fibers mainly develop high-grade products or even luxuries.

In fact, Japan was over 20 years ago.

In 2010, the Chinese Academy of textile science undertook a major technological support project of the Ministry of science and technology, namely, the development of super Imitation cotton synthetic fiber and its textile industrialization technology, and joint research and development with the enterprises in China's chemical fiber industry technology innovation alliance.

The project plans to set up or pform the super Imitation cotton polyester fiber spinning demonstration line 4, polyester continuous polymerization Demonstration Line 2, PTA process intensification Demonstration Line 1, textile, dyeing and finishing, fabric production demonstration line 8.

Through the demonstration and promotion of technological achievements, the industrialization of super Imitation cotton polyester fiber and its products will be promoted.

At this stage, the technical difficulty of super cotton imitation is that there is still a gap between the simulated products and the cotton in terms of handle and moisture regain, especially the polyester filament is more difficult to imitate cotton.

These indicators, which are directly related to the comfort level of consumers, are difficult to achieve, and the application of super cotton imitation will be a problem.

At the functional Home Textile Forum held last year, the representatives of chemical fiber and cotton textile industries, together with the downstream, discussed the difficulties and trends in developing super cotton.

The superimitated cotton project undertaken by the Academy of textiles is mainly classified into three categories: high hydrophilic, hydrophilic fine denier and easy to stain.

The development of these three kinds of filament and staple fiber basically covers the key common technologies to achieve super cotton imitation.

In addition to the development of fiber function, the key point of the development of super Imitation cotton polyester industrialization technology lies in the industrialization of continuous high polymerization polyester fiber through the stable addition and controllable polymerization of high proportion modified components in the industrial continuous spinning device.

If we push ahead smoothly, the technology and application of super cotton imitation will replace millions of tons of cotton, which can effectively alleviate the textile industry's demand for cotton fiber, and promote the structural adjustment and product upgrading of polyester polyester industry.

However, another problem is always waking up the chemical fiber industry, that is, the depletion of oil resources.

Biomass "blood"

Under the influence of geopolitical crisis, the recent international crude oil futures prices have risen steadily, breaking through the $110 / barrel mark.

The $200 / barrel of crude oil may be just a joke, but the increasing depletion of oil resources is an indisputable fact.

Polyester, nylon, spandex, acrylic, vinylon and other familiar "Dacron", accounting for nearly 90% of the total chemical fiber, but these products are all raw materials from oil.

At present, only the viscose fiber is widely used in the chemical fiber.

At the fourth China biological industry conference held in Ji'nan, Shandong last June, the China Chemical Fiber Association joined the relevant agencies for the first time, and successfully hosted the "biomass fiber and biochemical raw materials" forum and the "special exhibition on Bio Industry Development of chemical fiber industry".

The important significance of this conference is to make the industry clear about the determination and way to develop biomass fiber, and let the outside world realize that the biological industry is not only the world of biomedicine and bio energy, but also should include biomass fiber materials.

According to reporters, the fifth biological industry conference held in Shenzhen in June this year will show more figure of the chemical fiber enterprises. The biomass fiber and biochemical raw materials industry will also be discussed in a higher angle, wider scope and deeper level.

People once again realize that chemical fiber is not only linked to oil, but also closely related to agriculture, forestry and fishery.

The development of marine economy in Shandong and Zhejiang has also created conditions for the development of biomass fiber.

According to the statistical prediction of China Chemical Fiber Association, in the world's biomass regenerated fiber resources, regenerated cellulose fiber resources (such as crop stalks, trees, etc.) are about 550 billion tons. Chitin chitosan fiber resources such as marine shellfish, crustaceans and so on are about 100 billion tons, the amount of algal fiber resources is about 13 billion to 150 billion tons, and the protein fiber resources amount is about 5000 million tons.

These rich resources need to be targeted for rational development and application.

Generally speaking, the industry has made the most effective development and application of bamboo resources. Under the efforts of the Tianzhu fiber industry alliance, bamboo fiber has been widely used as a new environmentally-friendly raw material in skin care products such as underwear, socks, towels, bedding and so on. In the aspect of hemp fiber, it is typical of Shandong Hailong's "sacred hemp" fiber; chitin fiber and alginate fiber have also made new progress, but the scale production has not yet been realized.

According to the plan, in 12th Five-Year, biomass fiber and biochemical raw materials should focus on the total volume of development, biomass regenerated fiber from the current 1 million 800 thousand tons to 3 million 520 thousand tons, biomass synthetic fiber from the current 35 thousand tons to 210 thousand tons, bio based glycol in biochemical raw materials from 60 thousand tons to 300 thousand tons; two to focus on the development of technology and product goals, industrial structure goals, including "5 basic research projects +6 industrialization and application research and development project +5 promotion and application technology".

Technological innovation "big wave"

Duan Xiaoping, President of the China Chemical Fiber Association, said in an interview with reporters that in the "high cost era", we should develop new resources, increase the added value and expand the scope of application, but the most important thing is to seize the new technologies that can have significant impact and innovation on the industry.

The great role of these technologies in energy conservation, consumption reduction and cleaner production is of great value for coping with the challenges of the "high cost" era.

For example, in the industry, Jiangsu Sheng Hong group promoted the side blown ring blowing technology in a wide range of industries, the one step different shrinkage PET blended fiber of Xuzhou's ske, the liquid phase thickening melt direct spinning process developed by Zhejiang ancient fiber road, and so on.

On the other hand, technological innovation has made polyester fiber a traditional oil derivative with biological characteristics.

Since Changchun Dacheng Group made use of corn as raw material and successfully opened up third industrial routes to produce biologically based diols in the world, the biochemical revolution in polyester industry is developing.

Haitian Group is working with Changchun Dacheng to make use of bio based ethylene glycol instead of traditional petroleum glycol to produce a new polyester PDT with excellent properties and use Socorna as the trade name of PDT fiber, yarn and textiles.

Recently, the reporter called Haitian Group related people, learned that Socorna product promotion is very smooth, especially in the recent high raw material price stimulation, downstream for this bio based polyester product acceptance is even higher.

At present, the Dacheng Group is building a 10 thousand ton / year PDT polymerization plant and plans to introduce the second generation technology of biobase diols using corn stalks next year.

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Technology and technological innovation also took place in viscose fiber industry.

This typical circular economy industry is also facing the dual pressure of resources and environment.

In western developed countries, viscose fiber production in traditional technology is gradually decreasing.

In order to let viscose fiber "old tree" reopen "new flower", the industry is studying the use of biochemical technology instead of chemical extraction of cellulose, greatly improving the conversion rate of alpha cellulose, thereby improving production efficiency, and effectively solve the viscose fiber production process of environmental protection.

The Lyocell fiber produced by Shanghai Textile Group, the new solvent method cellulose fiber, which is co operated by the Chinese Academy of textile science and Xinxiang chemical fiber, are all innovations in the traditional viscose process, but it still takes time to form economic benefits.

In the "high cost" era, the chemical fiber industry is fortunate that the application of chemical fiber is not only limited to textile and clothing, but also closely related to pportation, pportation, medical, energy, aerospace, agriculture and many other fields, and chemical fiber is used as the raw material for over 90% of industrial textiles.

This means that chemical fiber products can reduce the cost pressure by expanding application and increasing the added value, and get new development opportunities.

According to the analysis and summary of the "11th Five-Year" by the chemical fiber Association and the basic judgement of the future development of the textile industry and the trend of China's macro-economy, the chemical fiber industry in 12th Five-Year has a growth margin of about 13 million tons.

Yantai spandex and many other enterprises have added or modified spandex production line, applying excellent performance of spandex to medical and sanitary products. Polyester industrial yarn has long been used to produce tire skeleton material. Shandong Hailong blight has developed aramid composite cord fabric on this basis, which has better comprehensive properties; Shanghai Petrochemical polyacrylonitrile plant has broken through its application barriers, and has used acrylic fiber in outdoor products for the first time in China.

It is true that the "high cotton price era" has indeed created new opportunities for the chemical fiber industry, but the "high cost" constraints faced by the chemical fiber industry also need to be resolved by many parties.

It is gratifying that the industry has found a way.