Hainan Baling Chemical New Material, a subsidiary of China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, has launched production of its styrene-butadiene copolymer (SBC) project in Hainan, China, which will reach an annual production capacity of 170,000 tons.

Sinopec now has the largest world's largest production capacity of SBC plants. Baling New Material and Sinopec Hainan Refining & Chemical Co., invested USD 279.74 million in the Hainan Baling project. The project's SBC plant produces 170,000 tons of SBS and SEBS products annually, including 120,000 tons of SBS products and 50,000 SEBS products. The plant has 13 units including refining, polymerization, coalescence, recycling, auxiliaries preparation, and post-treatment, as well as supporting production and public facilities.

TPE (thermoplastic elastomer) is a class of copolymers that can be plasticized at high temperatures and has rubber elasticity at room temperature, and SBC is a type of TPE, the products of which include SBS, SEBS, SIS, and SEPS, which are widely used in shoes, asphalt modification, resin modification, adhesives, food packaging, medical equipment, sports equipment, automotives, and consumer electronics.

The project uses Sinopec's self-developed SBS and SEBS full solution sets, including a clean manufacturing method that can create SBCs of varying grades and performances to fulfill customers' product customization needs. In the meanwhile, it's using Hainan Refining & Chemical's styrene and butadiene, Baling New Material's new technologies, and the Hainan Free Trade Port to minimize raw material and transportation costs and expand the industrial chain to optimize revenue. The Initiative will export SBC goods to developing European, Southeast Asian, and South Asian markets.

Sinopec has advanced synthetic rubber R&D in China for more than five decades. In the 1970s, Yanshan Petrochemical Research Institute developed butyllithium preparation and SBS polymerization technologies. Sinopec is one of only three firms in the world—and the only one in China—capable of industrial production of novel SEPS products using environmentally friendly technology. Baling New Material's SEPS facility, with a 20,000-ton annual production capacity, began production in August 2017.

With exclusive SBC technologies and proprietary intellectual property rights, Sinopec is now taking a technologically leading position in the world for the development of SBC technologies and products.