Luxi Chemical announces three major projects at once: covering hydrogen peroxide, polyamide, etc.

Recently, Luxi Chemical Group Co., Ltd. publicly announced three important projects at once, covering the three major fields of safety technical transformation of chemical units, quality optimization of nylon products, and pilot R&D of high-end new materials, which will be implemented by three respective subsidiaries.

This series of projects will further consolidate the foundation of enterprise safe production, optimize the quality of core products, and lay out the track for frontier new materials, helping the enterprise transform and upgrade towards high-end, safe, and refined operations.

It is understood that Luxi Chemical was established in 1976, formerly a 10,000-ton-scale small nitrogen fertilizer enterprise. In 2020, it was incorporated into the Sinochem Holdings system, with its headquarters located in the Liaocheng Chemical Industrial Park. The company is a listed enterprise on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (000830.SZ), currently with total assets reaching 32.3 billion RMB, over 12,000 employees, and 18 branches and subsidiaries. Its business covers multiple core industrial sectors such as coal chemical, fluorosilicate, new materials, and catalysts.

The three projects announced this time are operated and implemented by three subsidiaries: Liaocheng Luxi Hydrogen Peroxide New Materials Technology Co., Ltd., Liaocheng Luxi Polyamide New Materials Technology Co., Ltd., and Sinochem Luxi Catalyst Co., Ltd.

Safety and quality improvement technical transformation of hydrogen peroxide unit to adapt to provincial process upgrade requirements

The first project announced is the No. 1 Hydrogen Peroxide Safety Improvement Project of Liaocheng Luxi Hydrogen Peroxide New Materials Technology Co., Ltd. The core is to respond to Shandong Province's chemical safety upgrade policy by conducting special technical transformation and upgrades on old process units. It is reported that this subsidiary experienced a major explosion accident on Labor Day in 2023. The acid-base alternating fixed-bed hydrogen peroxide production process is a process with a high incidence of safety accidents in many places, making safety rectification and upgrade urgent.

As the province with the largest hydrogen peroxide capacity and output in the country, Shandong Province has clearly required that all acid-base alternating fixed-bed hydrogen peroxide units in the province must complete technical transformation before the end of December 2027. The upgrade plans are divided into two categories: fluidized bed process and full-acid fixed-bed process. Considering factors such as existing unit retrofit costs, construction cycles, and production impact, Luxi Chemical chose the full-acid fixed-bed retrofit plan, which requires less investment and has higher adaptability.

The technical transformation of this project does not change the unit capacity. After the transformation, it will maintain the production scale of 150,000 tons/year of 50% hydrogen peroxide, mainly focusing on the optimization and upgrade of the three core processes: oxidation, extraction, and post-processing. Among them, the hydrogenation unit transforms existing equipment to realize a "two operating, two standby" operation mode for the four hydrogenation liquid regeneration beds, adding on-site liquid level meters and temperature measurement points for the catalyst layer to strengthen production monitoring capabilities; the oxidation unit adopts a tower top pressure HH high-high interlock 2-out-of-3 redundant logic structure to improve the stability of the unit safety interlock; the post-processing process adds vacuum flash dehydration equipment, optimizes the clay bed configuration, and matches the needs of activated alumina for regenerating the working liquid. After the transformation is completed, the circulating working liquid of the unit will continue to remain weakly acidic, effectively reducing the occurrence of side reactions and reducing safe production risks from the process source.

Constructing a new medium-pressure hydrolysis unit to stabilize Nylon 6 product quality

The second announced project is the construction of a caprolactam · Nylon 6 supporting medium-pressure hydrolysis unit, implemented by Liaocheng Luxi Polyamide New Materials Technology Co., Ltd., focusing on solving the problem of quality fluctuations in the existing Nylon 6 production line. The total investment of the project is about 25 million RMB, and the concentrated liquid treatment scale reaches 49,200 tons/year.

According to reports, Luxi Chemical currently has three phases of Nylon 6 production projects, with capacities of 105,000 tons/year, 300,000 tons/year, and 600,000 tons/year respectively. There are differences in raw material ratios and product quality standards between the Phase I and II units and the Phase III unit. For a long time, the residual concentrated liquid produced by the Phase I and II units needed to be transported to the Phase III medium-pressure hydrolysis unit for treatment and reuse, directly leading to unstable quality of Phase III Nylon 6 products. At the same time, once the existing Phase II supporting medium-pressure hydrolysis unit shuts down, it will cause the main production system to stop, affecting the continuous and stable operation of the production line.

After the construction of the new medium-pressure hydrolysis unit, the residual concentrated liquid from Phase I and II units can be independently treated and reused in the Phase II polymerization system, completely avoiding interference with the quality of Phase III products and realizing the efficient resource utilization of caprolactam oligomers. The new and old medium-pressure hydrolysis units can serve as backups for each other, which not only guarantees continuous and stable production of the production line but also meets the development needs of future production expansion of Phase I and II Nylon 6 units, greatly improving product quality stability and the production line's risk resistance.

Layout of frontier pilot projects to tackle high-end catalyst new materials

The third project is the polyphosphazene compound pilot project, led by Sinochem Luxi Catalyst Co., Ltd. It belongs to the frontier new material R&D pilot project, focusing on tackling key technical problems in the localization of high-end catalytic materials.

Polyphosphazene compounds possess excellent thermal stability, chemical modifiability, and biocompatibility, and are widely suitable for high-end fields such as flame-retardant materials, medical polymers, and catalytic carriers, with huge market application potential. Relying on the industrial synergy advantages of the park, the ongoing organic silicone linear body deep processing project in the Luxi Chemical Park urgently needs chlorophosphazene catalysts to match production. Compared with the traditional strong base catalysis process, this catalyst can significantly improve the conversion rate of the organic silicone linear body polycondensation reaction, eliminate the introduction of metal ion impurities, and comprehensively improve the quality of terminal products.

This pilot project builds a chlorophosphazene catalyst pilot unit on the basis of previous small-scale tests, focusing on deep R&D and optimization of core indicators such as product synthesis purity, uniformity, operational stability, production cost control, and structure-activity matching. It aims to bridge the key link from laboratory technology to industrial application, build a solid technical foundation for the stable supply of high-end units such as organic silicone polymerization in the park, and further improve the enterprise's catalyst new material industry layout.

Industry insiders stated that Luxi Chemical's simultaneous announcement of these three major projects takes into account the bottom line of safe production, the quality improvement and efficiency enhancement of existing capacity, and the layout of the future new material track. It fits the development trend of the chemical industry towards safety, refinement, and high-end operations, and will continuously improve the enterprise's core competitiveness and industrial synergy advantages.