In recent years, we have witnessed the rapid development of agricultural product e-commerce in the Chinese market. During the period of the epidemic in 2020, “live streaming” has become a popular trend among consumers. A trend pursued by readers. However, the “first mile” of fresh agricultural products from the village to the city is still full of difficulties, which is also an important challenge faced by the entire cold chain industry. On the one hand, the disjointed construction of cold storage makes it difficult for farmers to realize their desire to “just grow and not worry about selling”; on the other hand, due to technical bottlenecks, most domestic cold storage cannot meet the needs of modern storage and preservation.
Terol™ polyester polyol – born to create value
Huntsman has developed an innovative process to convert used PET bottles into Terol™ polyester polyol through chemical recycling to produce polyurethane foam key raw materials. Up to 60% of Terol™ polyester polyols come from recycled PET plastic.
In May this year, Huntsman Taiwan’s Terol™ polyester polyol factory with an annual output of 22,000 Terol™ polyester polyols was officially put into operation, which is equivalent to the annual consumption and recycling of 440 million 500ml units. PET bottles; in June, Huntsman’s Tianjin system material factory with an annual output of 70,000 tons was officially put into operation, which used Terol™ polyester polyol as the raw material for production.
Pan Lumin, President of Huntsman Polyurethane Division Asia Pacific, said: “Sustainable development is an important issue for all companies. Huntsman has always been committed to sustainability. development, but it is not simply to introduce some concepts of sustainable development into the development strategy, but to create value in the process. A long-standing problem in plastic recycling is downcycling, that is, plastic is converted into something other than its original use Products with lower value. How to combine sustainable development and value creation is a more worthy development direction.”
“Terol™ polyester polyol is a good example. When used in the production of polyurethane insulation boards, it provides good insulation properties and significantly reduces Energy consumption and reduction of carbon emissions. In terms of fire protection, Terol™ polyester polyol is based on the paraben structure. The structure of polyurethane products produced from it as raw material is more stable, and the building fire rating has been upgraded from the currently common B2 level to more Strict B1 level. Not only that, because recycled materials are used in the production process, it has a certain degree of economy.”
Food safety and preservation—opportunities and challenges in the post-epidemic period
Cold chain logistics is a need for global development. Nearly one-third of the world’s food is wasted. Today, we are still at a similar level, where maybe 40% of China’s fruits and vegetables are damaged because of the lack of cold chain. This year’s epidemic has brought crises to the world, as well as opportunities and challenges. Before the epidemic, many people would shop online, but when it came to fresh food, they preferred to go to supermarkets and wet markets. After the epidemic, consumers felt the need to buy fresh food online, and even began to like and adapt to this method.
“Based on the calculation of a common cold storage, the electricity bill per square meter per day is about 1 yuan. If it is a cold storage of 10,000 square meters, the electricity bill will be more than 3 million yuan a year. Expenditure. If you choose polyurethane insulation materials, compared with other insulation materials such as polystyrene boards, extruded boards, mineral wool, etc., you can save at least 20% of energy and significantly reduce electricity bills. Same as our partner Henan Chaocheng Building Materials , Huntsman is optimistic about the development of China’s cold chain industry and hopes to seize opportunities, grow together, and make some contributions to regional economic development.”
Openness, innovation, and cooperation are key words for the economic and social development of China and the world, providing a strong impetus for the continued development of foreign-funded enterprises including Huntsman in China. China’s economic development emphasizes a new pattern in which domestic circulation is the mainstay and domestic and international dual circulations reinforce each other. Twenty years ago, a large number of products might need to be shipped from Europe and the United States to China. Today, most of Huntsman’s products are produced locally. At the same time, through innovative polyurethane raw material research and development and green production, Huntsman works with local partners to provide sustainable solutions for modern agriculture, cold chain warehousing and other thermal insulation fields, and promote local practices of internal and external dual circulation.
Dongguan Polyurethane Materials Co., Ltd. was established in 2009 and is deeply involved in the subdivided industry of Polyurethane raw materials—Amine Catalyst; R&D and compound production of various types of amine catalysts, main products: <strongDMDEE, Triethylenediamine, Catalyst A300, BDMA, Catalyst SMP, etc. The products are suitable for end products such as sponge, molding, high resilience, self-skinning, PU toys and various hard and semi-hard foams.
