What is fine chemical industry?

Where there is less investment, where the rate of return is high, the profit rate is high and the added value is high. Chemicals with small varieties, multi-characteristics and high knowledge density are called fine chemicals. The employment direction is nothing more than the synthesis of pharmaceutical intermediates.

[Edit this paragraph] Development status of fine chemicals at home and abroad

According to statistics, there are 17 chemical enterprises in the global top 500, among which the first few are DuPont, BASF, Hearst and Bayer, Dow in the United States and Ciba-Cargill in Switzerland. They all have a history of 100 years. Before the 1970s, petrochemical industry was vigorously developed, and then it gradually turned to fine chemical industry. Germany is the earliest country to develop fine chemicals. They started from coal chemical industry, which accounted for about 80% of raw materials before the 1950s. However, due to the poor process route and benefit of coal chemical industry, the proportion of chemical products with petroleum as raw materials soared from 65438 to 0970, reaching more than 80%.

Dupont is the largest chemical company in the world, established in 1802. From 1980 to fine chemical industry, it started later than Germany and Japan, but it developed rapidly. The company aims to improve quality, reduce costs and improve the market competitiveness of general products in the past. Since 1980s, it has expanded the production of special chemicals, mainly fine chemical products, such as pesticides, drugs, special polymers and composite materials. The company's long-term goal is to develop life science products, such as health care products, anticancer, anti-aging drugs and bionic medical products. From 65438 to 0995, the company earned $3.3 billion.

Dow Chemical Company was established in 1897. At the end of 1970s, through product structure adjustment, we strengthened the production of medicine and various engineering polymers, especially automotive coatings and adhesives. In 1973, the company's output value of fine chemicals was only $540 million, and the rate of fine chemicals was 18%, which soared to 50% in 1996. In the early 1990s, the total output value was $20 billion, and the output value of fine chemicals accounted for110 billion.

BASF, Hearst and Bayer are the three pillars of German chemical enterprises. Most of them increase investment by means of merger, transfer and sale, implement core business with the strength of technical force, and try their best to increase the proportion of core business and the market share of leading products. Focus on the development of high-tech fields such as health care and medical supplies, agricultural chemicals, electronic chemicals, medical diagnostic supplies, information and video supplies, aerospace chemicals and new materials, and greatly improve the scientific and technological content and economic benefits of fine chemical products. For example, the sales of BASF's special products, such as coatings and photosensitive resins, increased from 65438+ 1 1% in 1980 to 30% in 1995. The company's turnover in 1994 was 46.2 billion Deutsche Mark, that in Hearst 1996 was 52/kloc-0.0 million Deutsche Mark, and that in Bayer 1994 was 26.7 billion dollars. They all attach great importance to the development of high technology. By the end of 1995, Bayer had obtained 155000 patents and 24000 products. Its leading pharmaceutical product has a history of 100 years.

Ciba-Jiaji Company of Switzerland is a world-famous manufacturer of pesticides, medicines, dyes, additives, cosmetics, detergents and aviation adhesives. And it is the only large enterprise in the world that outsources all raw materials to develop fine chemicals. 1994 turnover 16 1 100 million USD, and the rate of fine chemicals ranks first in the world, reaching over 80%.

Developed countries constantly adjust the product structure of chemical industry according to the needs of economic benefits and development, as well as the guidance of market, environment and resources. The focus of their transformation is fine chemical industry, and the development of fine chemical industry has become a worldwide trend. 199 1 year global sales of fine chemicals are more than 40 billion dollars, mainly in western Europe, the United States and Japan. In the early 1990s, the rate of fine chemicals in developed countries was about 55%, and it rose to 60% in the late 1990s. The development speed of fine chemicals has been higher than other industries. Take the United States as an example In the late 1980s, the growth rate of industry was 2.9%, while that of fine chemicals was as high as 5%. The main goal of their development is to expand the production of special products such as medical and health products, electronic chemicals, special polymers and composite materials, and vigorously develop life science products, such as anticancer drugs, bionic medical products, pollution-free and efficient herbicides and fungicides.

Since China took fine chemical industry as its key development goal in 1980s, the policy has been tilted and developed rapidly. During the Eighth Five-Year Plan period, there were 10 fine chemical technology development centers, with an annual production capacity of more than 8 million tons and about 1 10,000 kinds of products, with an annual output value of 90 billion yuan, which laid a certain foundation. By the end of the 20th century, the rate of fine chemicals reached 35%. Compared with foreign developed countries, there is a big gap. They need16,000 kinds of fine chemicals, and the electronics industry alone needs more than 7,000 kinds of color TVs. The matching rate of domestic products is less than 20%, and the rest are all imported. Others are in short supply in terms of fabric finishing agents and leather finishing agents. In addition, the quality, variety, technical level, equipment and experience of fine chemical products in China can not meet the needs of many industries.

[Edit this paragraph] Opportunities faced by fine chemical industry

Fine chemical industry is closely related to people's daily life, and its importance is no less than that of grain production, which is related to national security. Therefore, fine chemical industry is one of the pillar industries in China. At the beginning of the new century, fine chemical industry has been listed as one of the development priorities by the State Economic and Trade Commission. This is one of the good opportunities for fine chemical industry.

Most of the fine chemicals produced are chemicals with new technology, fast variety renewal, strong technical specificity, strong monopoly, fine technology, accurate separation and purification, high technical concentration, small relative production, high added value, functionality and specificity. Many experts and scholars at home and abroad define fine chemical industry in 2 1 century as high and new technology. There are many fine chemical enterprises in foreign high-tech parks, such as Les Ulis high-tech park in the southwest suburb of Paris, France. The same is true at home. There are a large number of fine chemical enterprises in high-tech development zones in Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou. As long as they are high-tech enterprises, they can enjoy preferential conditions in policy, financing, foreign trade, land acquisition and employment. This is one of the good opportunities for fine chemical industry.

At present, industrial restructuring is taking place all over the world. With the continuous improvement of environmental protection requirements, industrialized countries such as Europe, America and Japan have successively transferred many chemical enterprises to developing countries. Although they tried to transfer pollution, they did transfer a certain amount of high-tech fine chemicals production abroad, and this trend is expanding. Judging from the world economic map, it is mainly Asia, South America and Africa that can accept this transfer. As Africa's economy and technology are backward, it can't afford this transfer. Although the South American Economic Cooperation Zone headed by Brazil has a certain foundation in economy, technology and resources, its political instability and economic dangers make foreign investors daunting. Asia's economy has developed rapidly, especially in East Asia and South Asia, where natural and human resources are unique and the economic and technological level has reached a considerable level. Among them, ten ASEAN countries have cheap labor, and China and India are the most competitive. Because of China's stable political situation, preferential policies, large market capacity, and its commitment to economic construction, it has laid a solid foundation for 20 years of reform and opening up, so China is better than India. According to the statistics of 1995, there are nearly 20,000 foreign-funded chemical enterprises in China, including 2,206 fine chemical enterprises.

With the development of high and new technologies in the world and China, nanotechnology, information technology, modern biotechnology, modern separation technology, green chemistry and many other high and new technologies will be combined with fine chemical industry to serve high and new technologies. High and new technologies will further transform fine chemical industry, further broaden the application fields of fine chemical products, further upgrade, refine, compound and functionalize products, and develop in the direction of high and new fine chemical industry. Therefore, the benign interaction of various high technologies is the fourth good opportunity for fine chemical industry.

Faced with these four good opportunities, it is no wonder that domestic experts, scholars and people of insight agree that fine chemical industry is definitely a sunrise industry in China with a bright future.

The progress of the industry and the development of enterprises need the support of outstanding professionals. This provides a place for our students to display their talents. In fact, the annual employment rate of our fine chemical graduates is as high as 95%. Many fine chemical enterprises inside and outside the province came to our school to ask for the introduction or recruitment of fine chemical graduates. Because there are many fine chemical enterprises in society, the economic benefits of fine chemical enterprises are generally good, the export and domestic market potential of fine chemical products are huge, and the development prospects of fine chemical products are broad, so the social capacity of fine chemical graduates is very large. In the foreseeable future, there will be basically no employment problem.

[Edit this paragraph] Development direction of fine chemical industry

According to the regulations of the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD), automobile, machinery, nonferrous metallurgy and chemical industry belong to medium-tech industries in terms of technology intensity. High-tech and its industries are specific fields determined by their high R&D content, such as aerospace, information industry and pharmacy. As a branch of chemical industry, fine chemical industry generally belongs to the category of medium technology, but as fine chemical industry, high-performance chemical new materials, medicine, biochemistry and so on have been identified as high-tech categories. 2 1 century is the era of knowledge economy, and a new technological revolution of three frontier sciences with bioengineering, information science and new material science as the main body is bound to have a great impact on the chemical industry. The development trend of traditional industries such as fine chemicals is bound to increase the intensity of technical knowledge and complement each other with high and new technologies.

1. the combination of nanotechnology and fine chemical industry

The so-called nanotechnology refers to the science and technology that studies the motion law and interaction of the system composed of substances with the size between 0. 1 ~ 100nm, as well as the possible technical problems in practical application. Nanotechnology is one of the important contents of the revolution of science and technology industry in 2 1 century. It is a comprehensive discipline that highly intersects with physics, chemistry, biology, materials science and electronics, including basic science with observation, analysis and research as the main line and technical science with nano-engineering and processing as the main line. Undeniably, nanotechnology is a complete system integrating scientific frontier and high technology. Nanotechnology mainly includes nano-electronics, nano-machinery and nano-materials. Just like microelectronics and computer technology in the 20th century, nanotechnology will be one of the brand-new technologies in the 20th century. Its research and application will surely bring a new technological revolution.

Nano-materials have many characteristics, such as quantum size effect, small size effect, surface effect and macroscopic quantum tunneling effect, which make nano-particles obviously superior to ordinary particles in thermomagnetism, light, sensitivity, surface stability, diffusion and sintering properties, mechanical properties, etc. Therefore, nano-materials are widely used in fine chemicals. Specific performance in the following aspects:

(1) Nano-polymers are used to make foams with high strength/weight ratio, transparent insulating materials, laser-doped transparent foams, high-strength fibers, high-surface adsorbents, ion exchange resins, filters, gels and porous electrodes.

(2) Nano-daily chemical nano-daily chemical and cosmetics, nano-pigments, nano-photographic films and nano-fine chemical materials will bring us to a colorful world. Recently, the research department of Kodak Company in the United States has successfully developed a new nano-powder with both pigment and molecular dye functions, which is expected to bring revolutionary changes to color images.

(3) Adhesive and sealant nano-SiO2 _ 2 has been added to adhesive and sealant as an additive abroad, which greatly improves the bonding effect of adhesive and the sealing performance of sealant. Its mechanism is that the surface of nano-silica is coated with a layer of organic material, which makes it hydrophilic. When it is added into sealant, the structure of silicon dioxide is rapidly formed, that is, nano-SiO _ 2 forms a network structure, which limits the flow of colloid, accelerates the curing speed, improves the bonding effect, and improves the sealing performance of adhesive due to its small particle size. Mu chong's academic blog, M oe {%|*LW.

(4) Coatings Adding nano-SiO2 _ 2 into various coatings can improve its aging resistance, smoothness and strength, and the quality and grade of coatings will naturally upgrade. Nano-SiO2 _ 2 is a kind of anti-ultraviolet radiation (that is, anti-aging) material, and its tiny particles have a large specific surface area, which can quickly form a network structure when the coating is dried, and at the same time increase the strength and smoothness of the coating. Woodworm academic blog1n&; Y/Pi[V.A

(5) High-efficient combustion improver Adding nano-nickel powder to rocket solid fuel propellant can greatly improve the combustion heat and efficiency of fuel and improve the combustion stability. Nano-explosives will increase the power of explosives by a thousand times;

(6) Hydrogen storage materials FeTi and Mg2Ni are important candidate alloys for hydrogen storage materials, which absorb hydrogen slowly and must be activated, that is, the hydrogen absorption-dehydrogenation process is carried out for many times. Zaluski et al. directly formed Mg2Ni by ball milling Mg and Ni powders, with an average grain size of 20 ~ 30 nm, and its hydrogen absorption performance is far superior to that of ordinary polycrystalline materials. Hydrogen absorption of common polycrystalline Mg2Ni can only be carried out at high temperature (when the pH is less than 20 Pa, T is greater than T ≥ 250 C), but the hydrogen absorption time at low temperature is long and the hydrogen pressure is high. Nanocrystalline Mg2Ni can absorb hydrogen below 200℃ without activation treatment. After the first hydrogenation cycle at 300°C, the hydrogen content can reach about 3.4%. In the subsequent cycle, the hydrogen absorption rate is 4 times faster than that of ordinary polycrystalline materials. The hydrogen absorption and activation properties of nanocrystalline FeTi are obviously better than those of ordinary polycrystalline materials. The activation process of common polycrystalline FeTi is: heating to 400 ~ 450℃ in vacuum, then annealing in 7Pa H2, cooling to room temperature, and exposing to higher pressure (35 ~ 65 Pa) of hydrogen. The activation process needs to be repeated several times. However, the nanocrystalline FeTi formed by ball milling only needs to be annealed at 400℃ for 0.5 h in vacuum, which is enough to complete all hydrogen absorption cycles. Nanocrystalline FeTi alloy consists of nanocrystalline grains and highly disordered grain boundary regions (about 20% ~ 30% of the material).

(7) In the catalyst material, the active site of the reaction can be a cluster atom on the surface or another substance adsorbed on the surface. These positions are closely related to surface structure, lattice defects and crystal angle. Nanocrystalline materials are suitable as catalytic materials because they can provide a large number of catalytically active sites. In fact, many nano-structured catalytic materials have appeared decades before the term "nano-materials" appeared. Typical catalysts, such as metal nanoparticles supported on inert substances, such as RH/Al2O3 and Pt/C, have been used in petrochemical, fine chemical and automobile exhaust. In the chemical industry, the use of nanoparticles as catalysts is another aspect of nanomaterials. For example, ultrafine boron powder and ammonium chromate powder can be used as effective catalysts for explosives; Ultrafine platinum powder and tungsten carbide powder are efficient hydrogenation catalysts; Ultrafine silver powder can be used as a catalyst for ethylene oxidation; Copper and its alloy nano-powders have high efficiency and strong selectivity as catalysts, and can be used as catalysts in the process of methanol synthesis from carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Nano-nickel powder has a strong catalytic effect and can be used for hydrogenation of organic compounds and treatment of automobile exhaust.

Ping Jin et al. prepared Pd colloidal ultrafine particles (average particle size 65438±0.8nm) supported by polyvinylpyrrolidone by colloidal method, which were used to catalyze the following reactions:

It was found that its activity was 2 ~ 3 times higher than that of ordinary palladium catalyst, and its selectivity was close to 100%.

More than two kinds of osmium ultrafine particles or alloys can also be used as catalysts to obtain higher catalytic activity and selectivity. For example, amorphous Ni-B nano-catalyst prepared by chemical reduction method and Co-Mn/SiO _ 2 nano-alloy catalyst for ethylene hydrogenation have good catalytic performance. Metal nanoparticles such as nickel, cobalt, iron and TiO _ 2-γ-Al _ 2O _ 3 are mixed, molded and roasted to purify automobile exhaust. The activity is similar to that of ternary Pt catalyst, and the activity does not decrease after working at 600℃ 100 hours.