Editor's note: Craftsmen, with their perfect and peak skills, witness the sublime and greatness in the ordinary. On the occasion of the International Labor Day, sponsored by the Hunan Provincial Federation of Trade Unions, the second Huxiang craftsman selection list was announced, these skilled craftsmen with meticulous, excellence in the work attitude, with tireless, meticulous professionalism, to promote the development of new quality productivity, to achieve the "three highs and four new" blueprint, to write a chapter of Chinese modernization in Hunan to contribute their own energy.
A Huxiang craftsman, an enterprising banner. Red Net launched a series of reports on "Huxiang Craftsmen", listening to the stories of struggle of Huxiang craftsmen and seeing how the spirit of craftsmen helps them reach the peak of their careers.
At the site and control room of the small-scale test plant of the Rubber and Plastic Center of the Rubber and Plastic Department of Baling Petrochemical Co., Ltd., Liang Hongwen (middle) explained the key points and precautions of recent innovation to the post-80s and 90s apprentices.
Red Net Moment News reporter Chen Yanbing reports from Yueyang
"We must challenge the impossible and take the road of self-reliance, self-improvement and independent innovation!" Engaged in scientific research for more than 30 years, Liang Hongwen has made the impossible possible again and again and achieved key breakthroughs.
Liang Hongwen is a well-known expert in new styrene thermoplastic elastomer materials (TPE-S) in China, a leading talent in Sinopec's synthetic rubber industry, and a senior expert in the field of chemicals and materials of Sinopec Corporation. For more than 30 years, he has been committed to the research and development of new thermoplastic elastomer materials, and a number of achievements have filled the domestic gap, making the mainland styrene thermoplastic elastomer new material industry from weak to strong, and Baling Petrochemical has become one of the world's three major R&D centers, with the largest production capacity in Asia and the second in the world. The products are used in the construction of important facilities such as Chang'an Avenue in the capital, the Olympic Bird's Nest, and the Shanghai F1 International Circuit, and have made positive contributions to economic and social development.
Break the overseas monopoly and fill the technological gap
In the 70s of the last century, foreign countries developed a new thermoplastic elastomer styrene-butadiene-styrene polymer (SBS) new material, which has excellent performance and convenient processing compared with traditional rubber, and is used in road pavement, building waterproofing, consumer goods, packaging, automobiles and other fields. Later, American and Japanese companies successively launched a new generation of hydrogenated styrene thermoplastic elastomer SEBS and higher-end SEPS products. In the late 80s, domestic SBS products broke through the complete set of industrial production technology, but the polymer microstructure control of SEBS is complex, the technical threshold is high, the domestic failure to achieve industrial production, the United States and Japan and other countries through the technical monopoly of the product to obtain huge profits, and the supply of imported products is difficult to guarantee, which seriously restricts the development of the styrene thermoplastic elastomer industry in the mainland.
After Liang Hongwen joined Baling Petrochemical, he has been engaged in SBS technology research and new product development, and is determined to break the international monopoly on the upgraded product SEBS. In order to learn new technologies, Liang Hongwen twice participated in the Baling Petrochemical Overseas Expedition Delegation, in the face of the strict technical blockade abroad, the delegation not only found nothing, but also was ridiculed: "This is the world's top thing, without technology accumulation, it can only be whimsical to touch it", "Don't think about technology transfer, don't waste your mind."
In 1996, Liang Hongwen started from scratch and began the long journey of independent research and development of SEBS. From the laboratory to the pilot test and then to industrial production, the ups and downs go without saying. In 2006, Liang Hongwen presided over the industrialization of the 10,000-ton SEBS complete set of technology independently developed in Hunan Yueyang Baling Petrochemical Company, becoming the first set of industrialized equipment in China, breaking the monopoly of foreign technology in one fell swoop. The annual meeting of the synthetic rubber industry commented: "The successful application of Baling Petrochemical's SEBS industrialization technology is a major progress in China's basic polymer materials in the past 10 years, and it is a landmark achievement in the field of synthetic rubber. ”
Liang Hongwen (first from right) and the apprentices exchanged their work experience on the front line of scientific research.
The technological breakthrough did not make Liang Hongwen complacent, he continued to overcome difficulties, and successively developed two series of 18 SEBS grades, so that the application of domestic styrene thermoplastic elastomers completely got rid of the constraints of foreign enterprises. The use of this complete set of technology has formed 90,000 tons/year of SEBS production and sales, with an annual output value of 1.5 billion yuan, profits and taxes of 500 million yuan, and has successively obtained more than 20 national invention patents, realizing the leapfrog development of SEBS preparation technology and products in mainland China from scratch, from existing to refined, and from refined to strong. In 2014, the project won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award, and Liang Hongwen received the award in the Great Hall of the People as the first winner.
After breaking through the technical blockade of SEBS, Liang Hongwen turned his attention to SEPS products with better transparency, better comfort and higher application fields. From 2008 to 2017, Liang Hongwen watered another flower of new materials with scientific perseverance, and developed a complete set of SEPS process technology with independent intellectual property rights for the first time in China, and the 20,000 tons/year industrial plant using this complete set of technology was completed and put into operation in 2017, ending the history of the mainland not being able to produce SEPS, and Baling Petrochemical Company became the third supplier in the world with the ability to produce SEPS. The industrialization of domestic SEPS has promoted the gradual normalization of the sales price of SEPS products that have been at a high price for a long time in China.
Develop green rubber and lead industrial upgrading
Infusion tubes and infusion bags are widely used infusion devices in the medical industry, and due to the toxicity of the plasticizer precipitation in soft PVC to the human body, it has been expressly prohibited from being used in the production of medical infusion tubes and infusion bags in Europe, America, Singapore and other regions. The use of SEBS instead of soft PVC in developed countries can solve the toxicity of soft PVC plasticizer precipitation to the human body. Liang Hongwen has successively presided over the research and development of medical elastomers in the "13th Five-Year Plan" key research and development project of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the demonstration platform for the production and application of biomedical materials of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the key projects of Hunan Province, and developed a special brand for medical SEBS. The medical SEBS products developed by him have filled the domestic gap, so that the price of medical SEBS has dropped from 5.0~65,000 yuan/ton imported to less than 30,000 yuan/ton, and the price has dropped significantly, which has promoted the upgrading of national health.
HSD lubricant viscosity index improver is an indispensable additive for high-end lubricants, and its supply is exclusively monopolized by Infineum, one of the world's four largest lubricant companies. Liang Hongwen led the technical team to develop lubricating oil viscosity index products that meet the requirements, eliminating the embarrassing situation of domestic dependence on imports, which is of great help to help the development of China's high-end materials and lubricants and improve the international competitiveness of the industry, especially in the field of heavy machinery and other fields of great strategic significance.
The cement sheath joints and annular joints of oil and gas wells, especially shale gas wells, are prone to leakage due to complex geological conditions, resulting in safety and environmental protection problems caused by wellhead pressure, and the existing solutions cannot solve the problem of leakage, which makes the exploitation of oil and gas wells limited and costly. Liang Hongwen developed a new type of elastomer material added to the cement slurry, which reduced the gas leakage rate of the cement ring of shale gas wells from the original 90% to 10%, solved the problems faced by oil and gas well exploitation, and helped the national energy supply.
Cultivate the feelings of the family and the country, and write the most beautiful chapter
As an authoritative expert in the domestic TPE industry, Liang Hongwen has won 1 second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award, 2 China Patent Excellence Awards, 3 Hunan Science and Technology Progress Awards, 7 Sinopec Science and Technology Progress Awards, applied for 37 invention patents, 19 of which were authorized, and 3 international PCT patents, one of which were authorized. He has won many honors such as "Outstanding Patent Inventor of Hunan Province" in 2009, "Leading Talent in Science and Technology Innovation of Sinopec Group" in 2016, "National Outstanding Scientific and Technological Worker" in 2016, "Meritorious Award for Scientific and Technological Innovation of Sinopec Group" in 2022, and "Top Ten Concentric Figures in Yueyang" in 2023.
He has always been loyal to the enterprise and the cause. Many private enterprises and private bosses in China have thrown him a high-paying olive branch many times, and he has politely declined, often saying: "I can't do things in a hurry, the company has given me such a high treatment, built such a good platform, and has a greater responsibility and more achievements in state-owned enterprises, and is nothing if I leave." "He was never bewitched by profit or temptation.
"Endure hardships without saying hardships, know difficulties without fearing difficulties", is a true portrayal of Liang Hongwen's insistence on scientific and technological innovation for decades. He is deeply rooted in the hot land of Yueyang, and is forging ahead towards the broad road of building a world-class elastomer new material production and research and development base.
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