Original Title: Hot Spots | Breaking Foreign Monopoly and Strengthening China's Military Prestige, How Does Xiangtou Jintian, the Leading Titanium Material, Work Hard in the PTA Industry? Wen | our reporter with Li Na Editor | Chen Qiong Zhou Hui probably did not expect that many years later, he would become attached to chemical fibers again. He had worked in the local Development and Reform Commission for many years, and was responsible for the management of the textile port and the non-ferrous metal port. He also served as the vice chairman of Hunan Chemical Fiber Enterprise for many years. During this period, in order to purchase PTA for the enterprise, he traveled abroad to inspect many PTA enterprises in Japan and the United States with advanced technology at that time. But since Zhou Hui put his passion for innovation and enthusiasm into the titanium material industry, the textile and chemical fiber industry, which had accumulated deep emotions, has gradually moved away from his vision. Today, things are changing. One generation of materials and one generation of equipment. This sentence is not only used to describe the important value of carbon fiber in the field of national defense and military equipment, but also to describe the value of titanium materials. As the most growing strategic metal material in the 21st century, titanium alloy is widely used in military, space, ocean and other fields, which is of great significance to promote the high-quality development of China's industrial equipment industry. As an industry with global competitive advantage in China's chemical industry, China's PTA industry is currently more and more closely related to titanium materials, Zhou Hui keenly captured this trend. Zhou Hui felt a different kind of joy when the accumulation of textile and chemical fiber industry in the past converged with her present career. So, what is the intersection of PTA industry and titanium materials in China? How to reflect the application and value of titanium materials in PTA industry? How will Zhou Hui's Xiang Tou Jin Tian do a lot of work in the meantime, and how can he be confident? Recently, the reporter interviewed Zhou Hui, chairman of Hunan Xiangtou Jintian Science and Technology Group Co., Ltd. Application of Titanium Tubes in Large-scale PTA Plant Has Become a Trend After more than 10 years of rapid development and industrial upgrading, China's PTA industry has won a global competitive advantage in terms of capacity scale, plant level, technology and product competitiveness. In 2018, the effective production capacity of PTA in China reached 45.79 million tons, the output was 40.8 million tons, and the self-sufficiency rate reached 99.8%. Large-scale and integrated PTA production plant, leading technology, efficient operation and low energy consumption have also become the distinct characteristics of the current operation of the industry. Expand the full text The production process of PTA includes complex chemical processes such as mixing, hydrogen production, reaction, evaporation, condensation, extraction, separation and drying, as well as processes such as liquid phase conveying, gas phase conveying, gas-liquid mixed phase conveying,titanium seamless tube, solid-liquid slurry conveying and solid powder conveying. Its production process is also accompanied by high temperature, high pressure, strong corrosion of process media and other prominent characteristics. Influenced by the process and production characteristics, titanium plates and tubes with high performance and corrosion resistance have been widely used in PTA plants in the international market in recent years. Because the titanium alloy has strong corrosion resistance, the corrosion resistance is far superior to that of stainless steel, the resistance to pitting corrosion, acid corrosion and stress corrosion is particularly strong, and the titanium alloy also has excellent corrosion resistance to alkali, chloride, nitric acid, sulfuric acid and the like. At the same time, it has high strength, tensile strength of 686 MPa to 1176 MPa, and density of 4.5 G/cm3, which is only about 60% of steel. Titanium tubes are mainly used for heat exchange tubes of condensers and heat exchangers in PTA plants,nickel titanium wire, with high reliability and long service life. In Norway, Japan and other countries, titanium alloy materials are widely used in related devices in the petroleum field. Titanium alloy materials are used in domestic PTA plants in recent years, but titanium alloy materials are mainly imported. The reason is that, on the one hand, the process package of PTA plant in China mainly adopts foreign technologies such as Invista technology and BP technology, so the titanium alloy seamless pipe used in the plant is logically matched with foreign materials. On the other hand, domestic PTA enterprises could not buy domestic titanium welded pipes before, because there was a lack of good titanium strips in China, and high-quality titanium welded pipes were welded with good titanium strips. Finally, a reality is formed that seamless titanium tubes are mostly used in domestic PTA plants.
Zhou Hui said: "The key point of titanium welded pipe in PTA plant is to solve the problem of corrosion resistance.". Large plant structure is very complex, so many pipes are gathered together, if the pipeline is corroded, rust and other situations, manufacturers will stop maintenance, which will not only increase operating costs, but also affect the normal production of enterprises in the peak season. In addition, there is a problem of "secondary pollution". Therefore, in recent years, the use of titanium alloy materials in domestic PTA plants has highlighted the urgency. At the same time, from the current trend, the number of enterprises using seamed titanium pipes in PTA plants is gradually increasing. The production of seamed titanium pipes is more environmentally friendly, belongs to clean manufacturing and green manufacturing, and is more convenient and has more economic value. Zhou Hui said. Xiangtou Jintian Leads Domestic Titanium Industry Innovation and Upgrading For a long period of time, what is more uncomfortable than the fact that the domestic titanium welded pipes needed by PTA plants can not be supplied independently is that the titanium materials needed by our national defense industry can not be self-sufficient. Many people may not think that foreign countries once implemented "neck jam" in the field of titanium materials. It is imperative to conquer the domestic innovative technology of titanium materials, and Hunan Investment Jintian has made a breakthrough in this field and become a rising star of foreign technology. Compared with some titanium material enterprises that have been established for decades, Hunan Investment Jintian, which has only 10 years of history, titanium tubing price ,ti6al4v, is a "recruit" in the domestic titanium industry. However, with a series of innovative technologies, this "recruit" has grown rapidly into one of the "top three" titanium enterprises in China, forming an international advanced and domestic first-class titanium industry platform. Its R & D and production of large coil weight wide titanium strip, high performance titanium welded pipe, high performance titanium alloy bar and other core technology products fill the domestic gap and break the foreign monopoly. At present, the annual production capacity of Xiangtou Jintian Titanium Belt is 10000 tons, and the annual production capacity of titanium pipe is 5000 tons, which is the first in Asia and the second in the world. Behind the glory, there is often an unknown story of hardship. At first, we knew titanium processing was difficult, but after 10 years, we didn't expect it to be so difficult. At that time, there was a lack of technology, talent and resources, and we were "recruits", so what should we do? Innovation must be accelerated. At that time, we were full of ambition and set a goal for ourselves-to fill the gap in the domestic market, the titanium steel joint model we created was an innovative move. However, in the process of creation, we have no experience to draw lessons from, so we can only work, explore and summarize at the same time. How many days and nights, we have been insisting on it. One night in 2007, a product was finally developed successfully, and before that, the company had gone through a whole year of exploration and repeated 32 experiments. At that time, the most difficult thing was that we did not match the standard. Although Japanese enterprises had technology, they kept it strictly confidential to our country. Ultimately, we rely on independent research and development to find a way of our own. Recalling those hard, muddy and passionate days, Zhou Hui is still full of emotion. All the efforts are obviously worth it. At present, Hunan Investment Jintian's products have successfully entered the "national team" phalanx and become the core supplier of China's large aircraft, nuclear power, ships and other strategic markets. The application of titanium alloys in naval submarines and other fields can reduce weight and improve corrosion resistance. Since the year before last, the application of titanium materials in submarines, aircraft carriers and other fields in China has been led by Hunan Investment Jintian. A large number of titanium alloys are used in the engine components, skeleton and other parts of the aircraft, and about 50% of the titanium materials currently used in domestic large aircraft come from Hunan Investment Jintian. At the same time, Hunan Investment Jintian is also the only Chinese supplier of high-performance titanium strips and tubes in the international market in the fields of energy, desalination, marine engineering and so on. It takes ten years to sharpen a sword. At present, we are the only Chinese titanium material enterprise that can compete in the international titanium strip market. Now it is said that our technology is stuck in the neck of others, but in the field of titanium belt, we have the ability to block the neck of others. Speaking of this, Zhou Hui's tone was obviously excited, "When we get together, we all feel very proud, and the sense of value and achievement of serving the country by industry suddenly comes to mind." Promote domestic PTA plant to be more refined When the application in the military industry and desalination market gradually opened up, and when the output of enterprises gradually increased, Zhou Hui began to think about how to adjust the product structure, and PTA, which connects chemical industry and chemical fiber, entered his field of vision.
Zhou Hui said: "Our products will mainly realize three substitutions in the field of PTA equipment in China: the first is to replace imports, the second is to replace titanium alloy seamless tubes, and the third is to realize the substitution of titanium alloy materials for other materials." It is reported that the titanium welded pipe forming deformation rebound compensation technology developed by Hunan Investment Jintian can meet the technical requirements of titanium welded pipe for PTA plant. The high efficiency heat exchange titanium welded tube developed for the first time can realize the special-shaped strengthening and multi-dimensional structural strengthening of titanium heat exchange tube. Through chemical composition, metallographic structure, mechanical property, process performance test, size and precision inspection and nondestructive testing, all indexes of the product can meet the requirements of the titanium tube standard for PTA and the ASTMB338 standard, and can replace the seamless titanium tube for PTA heat exchange. In the previous appraisal of technical achievements organized by the Ministry of Science and Technology Development of China Textile Industry Federation, the expert group agreed that its achievements were innovative, had independent intellectual property rights, reached the international advanced level, broke the long-term dependence on imports of titanium welded pipes in China, and realized the autonomy of the whole industrial chain of low hydrogen and low iron titanium products. If we look at the performance-price ratio, at present, while the product quality remains stable, the price of Xiangtou Jintian Titanium Welded Pipe is 20% -30% lower than that of Japanese enterprises. This will reduce the investment cost for domestic PTA production enterprises using seamed titanium tubes. On this basis, enterprises may also need to use another way of thinking to consider the investment output ratio. Zhou Hui explained: As a strategic material, the greatest advantage of titanium material is that it can realize the concept of the whole life cycle of products. For example, when it is used in marine engineering, it will not rust even after ten thousand years, which is why titanium alloys are used in marine competitions between countries. PTA belongs to the field of civil industry, some enterprises may feel that titanium welded pipe is more expensive, but once used, they feel very good. In our research, we met an enterprise that used titanium alloy in a set of devices in 1994, and there has been no problem in operation so far. Therefore, the accounts of enterprises using titanium welded pipes should be calculated according to the whole life cycle, not just in front of them. In addition, the use of welded titanium pipes in PTA plants will further improve the quality of PTA products. The complex production process from PX to PTA is accompanied by a large number of high-temperature reactions, especially in the condenser to complete a large number of heat exchanges. The use of welded titanium tubes can reduce the wall thickness of the condenser, accelerate the heat dissipation of the condenser, and thus improve the exchange efficiency. According to reports, the wall thickness of the seamed titanium pipe produced by Xiangtou Jintian is getting thinner and thinner, which is only 0.2 mm at present. PTA is one of the important application markets of titanium tube in civil field. With the continuous upgrading of materials,titanium bar grade 5, there is still much to be done in the refinement of PTA plants in China. We hope to expand the use of titanium tubes in PTA plants, but also to improve the profit margin of PTA enterprises. We are confident that together with PTA enterprises and related equipment enterprises, we will do a better job in the refinement of PTA plants and production in China and further promote the high-quality development of PTA industry. Zhou Hui is confident about the application and expansion of seamed titanium tubes in PTA plants. Return to Sohu to see more Responsible Editor:. yunchtitanium.com