Polyetheretherketone (PEEK) is a member of the polyaryletherketone (PAEK) high-performance thermoplastic family, with an application proportion of over 80%. Among more than 300 polyaryletherketone members, it ranks at the top of the polymer pyramid. PEEK’s extremely high physical and chemical properties make it suitable for use in extremely harsh environments. Its substitutability for traditional materials such as metals and ceramics in special fields is becoming increasingly popular, and its application prospects in aerospace, medical devices, automotive industry, electronics and electrical, semiconductors and general industrial fields are unlimited.

PEEKFamous ManufacturerVictrex, a British company, has currently achieved a production capacity of 7,000 tons/year, and in November 2017, it put into use the “Polymer Innovation Center” built at a cost of tens of millions of pounds. Victrex’s pioneering research and continued investment in polyetheretherketone polymers (PEEK) and other differentiated polyaryletherketones (PAEK) high-performance thermoplastics have left successors far behind, establishing its leading position in the global PEEK high-performance polymer field.

In the late 1980s, the team led by Wu Zhongwen of Jilin University, a leader in China’s polyetheretherketone (PEEK) technology research, explored a synthesis route with independent intellectual property rights – the “Jilin University” nucleophilic substitution route, which broke the technology monopoly of foreign companies in one fell swoop and shared one-third of the world with the “ICI” nucleophilic substitution route and the “Garda” electrophilic and nucleophilic substitution route. At present, the manufacturers adopting the “Jida” nucleophilic substitution process route include Evionc Degussa (Evionc®), Jida Special Plastics, Zhongyan Co., Ltd., Jinfa Technology, and Panjin Zhongrun Special Plastics①. Except for Zhongyan, which has an annual production capacity of 1,000 tons of PEEK, Evonik Degussa and Jida Special Plastics both have an annual production capacity of 800 tons.

In 2007, a group of young people in their prime gathered in Changzhou, Jiangsu, and started the road of PEEK application development in various industries. Junhua Special Plastics has been working hard for twelve years and has completed the technical accumulation and process capability of PEEK application development. It has realized the formulation design and composite modification of PEEK and PI special engineering plastic raw materials, injection molding processing, and continuous extrusion of PEEK plates, rods, tubes and sheets. It can perform three-dimensional manufacturing based on physical surveying and mapping. It also has the design and manufacture of injection molds and customized applications of various new products. Relying on the previous twelve years of application research and development and production experience, it has transformed into a PEEK application solution provider. “Junhua Special Plastics” brand products have been successfully applied in batches in the fields of automobiles, electronic semiconductors, textile printing and dyeing machinery, packaging machinery, medical equipment, petrochemical machinery and nuclear industry. At present, the competition in the PEEK application market is becoming increasingly fierce, but Europe is still the main trading market for PEEK in the world, accounting for 48% of the market share, the United States accounts for 41%, the Asia-Pacific region accounts for 6%, and other regions account for 5%. It can be expected that emerging markets such as China, India, and Southeast Asia will become the main driving force for the growth of global PEEK demand in the next few years. At the same time, the future competition pattern will form an industrial chain competition. The PEEK market in the application development field will gradually be divided and monopolized by several big brands. The competition intensity will become increasingly fierce, and then extend to the field of PEEK resin raw powder production. Jiangsu Junhua Special Plastics prepared for the rainy day and made early arrangements. In 2015, it started the pilot production of PEEK resin polymerization in Changzhou, and at the end of 2017, it began to invest in the construction of a 2,500 tons/year PEEK (polyetheretherketone) resin production project. After multiple inspections and market research, at the end of 2017, the project settled in Jining New Materials Industrial Park, a provincial-level chemical park in Shandong Province. In April of the same year, Shandong Junhao High-Performance Polymer Co., Ltd., a holding subsidiary of Jiangsu Junhua Special Plastics, was registered and established. The first phase of the Shandong Junhao polymerization project is scheduled to start trial production in August 2020. By then, Junhua will have formed a complete PEEK industry chain from the Weishan Lake section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal in the north to the Yangtze River Delta region in the south. With PEEK resin raw materials as the basic support, it will be able to better meet the market’s differentiated and higher quality standards of PEEK needs, and the future is promising.

References:

① Chen Ziping, Forward-looking Industry Research Institute, “Analysis of the Development Status and Market Prospects of the Global PEEK Industry in 2018, Europe is Still the Main Battlefield”.