Recently, the world's first continuous pilot production line project of thousand-ton-level 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) was completed in Zhoushan City, Zhejiang Province.
Evaluated by a panel of experts led by Chinese Academy of Sciences academician Zhang Tao, the 2000-ton "Key Technology of Full Mixing Flow Continuous Production of 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural" production line project located in Daishan was unanimously approved. This signifies the first innovative application and technological achievement transformation of the biomass new material "5-Hydroxymethylfurfural".
The world's first thousand-ton-level production line for bio-based 5-hydroxymethylfurfural project. Image provided by the Zhejiang Ocean Development Research Institute.
5-Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF). Image provided by the Zhejiang Ocean Development Research Institute.
Research on biomass conversion is providing new impetus for the international chemical industry, with bio-based platform molecule production technology being a crucial battleground. As an important bio-based material, the industrialization project of "key technology for the continuous production of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) in full mixed flow" utilizes biomass resources to replace traditional petrochemical resources, extracting the bio-based furan material "5-hydroxymethylfurfural" from biomass raw materials such as starch, sucrose, and fructose. The application fields of "5-hydroxymethylfurfural" after reaching production are very broad, including surfactants, formaldehyde substitutes, antioxidant pharmaceuticals, edible flavor and fragrance fine chemicals, polyester plastics, special functional materials, etc., with excellent properties such as high temperature resistance and natural degradation, and global demand exceeding tens of millions of tons. The pilot success of the thousand-ton-level bio-based 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) project has achieved the import substitution of high-temperature-resistant polyester and polycarbonate in one fell swoop.
The scale-up of this world-class chemical technology has made a breakthrough in Daishan, Zhoushan. In the Daishan New Materials Research and Testing Base, Zhejiang Sugar Energy Technology Co., Ltd., responsible for the development of "5-hydroxymethylfurfural," has been developing HMF since 2012 and entered the fast lane of industrialization in July last year. Sugar Energy Technology has built a 2,000-ton continuous production line at the pilot plant. After half a year of further optimization and validation, continuous stable operation has finally been achieved.
Why did the new material achieve transformation in Daishan County? In 2020, to seize the opportunity of the high-end development of petrochemical new materials industry, Zhoushan City introduced cooperation with the Ningbo Institute of Materials, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and invested a total of 550 million yuan to build the Daishan New Materials Research and Testing Base of the Ningbo Institute of Materials, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The base aims to create a highland for the transformation of new materials with the pilot phase as the starting point, constructing pilot workshops that can simultaneously meet the experimental needs of 12 research teams, making it one of the largest and most well-equipped new material pilot bases in China.
Since its operation in July 2023, 11 high-end new material R&D projects like Sugar Energy Technology have successively settled in 10 pilot workshops, with 5 new introduced projects entering the equipment installation stage, expected to "start up" in the second half of this year.
It is reported that the implementation of this production technology will completely change the import trade pattern of Chinese HMF products, directly accelerating the development of downstream bio-based furan new material products, and providing a new path for the utilization of agricultural and forestry residual biomass resources.
