Kuncai technology Xie Bingkun: Using Chinese pigments to brighten the world

Choose pearlescent pigment for entrepreneurship, Xie Bingkun values its small and beautiful Small refers to the very small branch of pearlescent pigment in the chemical industry, but it is widely used; beautiful refers to the attractive profit of pearlescent pigment Since its establishment in 1999, kuncai technology has been taking technological innovation as the driving force for the development of the enterprise, and has built its own unique core competitiveness, so that the pearlescent pigments made in China can go to the world "No photographing" is the rule of many high-tech enterprises, but in kuncai technology, no matter in the factory or in the core production line, competitors in the same industry can pick up their mobile phones or cameras at will to take photos "Even if you take it all back, you can't do it to our level." Xie Bingkun, chairman of kuncai technology, said with a loud voice, "all the production processes and key equipment here are developed by ourselves." Since its establishment in 1999, kuncai technology has been taking technological innovation as the driving force of enterprise development, building its own unique core competitiveness, so that the pearlescent pigments made in China can go to the world At present, the supply of pigments used in the high-end field of kuncai technology is in short supply, and the order is in hand one year in advance The company is expanding its production capacity, accelerating the promotion of titanium dichloride project, and starting the project with an annual output of 100000 tons of cosmetics grade titanium dioxide, automobile grade titanium dioxide (with the raw material project of 800000 tons of titanium dichloride) and 120000 tons of iron oxide (with the raw material project of 400000 tons of iron trichloride) "The project with an annual output of 200000 tons of titanium dichloride will be put into operation recently At that time, the company will become the world's leading manufacturer of pearlescent materials " Xie told reporters excitedly, "after all projects are put into production in 2021, the company's profits will increase substantially." The sales volume ranks the second in the world to choose pearlescent pigment for entrepreneurship Xie Bingkun values its small size and beauty Small means that pearlescent pigment belongs to a very small branch in the field of chemical industry, but it has a wide range of uses The brilliant colors of coatings, ceramics, automobiles, leather, inks, drugs, cosmetics, household appliances, etc all come from it Beauty means that pearlescent pigments have attractive profits Although the amount of pearlescent materials used in automobile, cosmetics and other fields is small, the price is not cheap For example, the pearlescent material in lipstick is sold for hundreds of dollars per kilogram, and gross profit margin has remained high for over ten years, averaging about 50% In 1999, Xie Bingkun resigned from a state-owned enterprise in Wuhan, went back to his hometown Wenzhou to rent a 2000 square meter factory and set up a pearlescent material processing plant At that time, pearlescent materials industry was just in its infancy in China The lack of advanced technology and equipment, the lack of talents and capital were all the "tight hoops" on his head However, with an unyielding momentum and the pursuit of quality, his enterprise won the first foreign order in 2001, which is also the first export order of Chinese pearlescent pigments In the following ten years, kuncai technology has been devoting itself to research and seek from top to bottom, and has developed more than 1000 varieties covering nearly 100 fields such as automobiles and cosmetics, becoming one of the most abundant production suppliers of pearlescent material products in the world The seven series of pearlescent materials used for high-end coatings, including syrama, China red, crystal dragon, diamond dragon, sirankap, Provence and fluorocarbon grade, have become "unique products" in the international market Today, kuncai technology has sold its products to more than 130 countries and regions around the world, covering the top 10 customers in many industries, including PPG, Aksu, Astor, Nippon, Kansai, Klein, PolyOne and other world top 500 companies Dior, Lancome, Chanel, Armani and other famous cosmetics manufacturers have also purchased the pearlescent pigments of kuncai technology "In the global pearl pigment industry, at present, we are firmly second in terms of sales volume, and third in terms of sales revenue." Xie told reporters "The rapid development of the industry is mainly due to the increasing global attention to environmental protection, safety and health." Xie Bingkun said that before, the vast majority of pigments were made of organic materials, and some of them were made of metal products such as aluminum silver pulp, which were neither environmental friendly nor healthy The production process of pearlescent materials is environment-friendly, clean and free of heavy metals More importantly, it is temperature resistant, weather resistant, light resistant, water resistant and color fastness stable It can give the application products three-dimensional, hierarchical, three-dimensional and angular color, and bring people strong appeal and aesthetic visual impact Pearlescent materials gradually replace organic pigments, dyes and metallic pigments "In 1999, when I started this business, the global production capacity was only 20000 tons, and the sales volume was more than 1 billion In 2018, global production capacity increased to over 100000 tons, with sales volume of about 10 billion yuan " Xie Bingkun said that in recent years, the annual consumption of pearlescent powder has basically maintained a growth rate of about 20% With the continuous improvement of people's consumption level, the industry expects that the pearlescent pigment market will reach 20 billion yuan in the next few years Once an industry has a high profit, it will generally attract capital to rush in The same is true for the pearlescent material industry, but Xie Bingkun is not afraid, "we have built our own core competitiveness, and the technical wall protection is very high." The main raw materials of pearlescent pigments are mica, titanium, iron, etc "Whoever controls these major raw materials will have the say in the pearlescent material industry." Xie Bingkun said that the company has a complete pearlescent material industry chain and can produce mica, titanium dichloride and ferric chloride by itself The price of natural mica is low, there are many impurities, heavy metals and other trace elements, so it is difficult to remove them In contrast, synthetic mica not only has no disadvantages of natural mica, but also produces pearlescent pigments with high color consistency, better brightness and stability "We have solved the global problem of melting modification of synthetic mica through numerous tests." Xie Bingkun said that in 2018, kuncai technology produced 10000 tons of high-quality synthetic mica sheets, which were sold to overseas markets while being used by the company itself Another key raw material, titanium and iron, kuncai technology is about to become self-sufficient "In recent two years, due to environmental protection, titanium liquid supply is in short supply In 2018, our production line had to stop because of shortage." Xie Bingkun believes that raw materials cannot be controlled, which will not only affect the production capacity, but also sometimes affect the quality of pearlescent pigments The annual output of 200000 tons of titanium dichloride project of kuncai technology is under commissioning and will be put into production recently "At present, the company's pearlescent material capacity is 30000 tons, corresponding to the demand for titanium dichloride of about 60000 tons After the project is put into operation, it can not only achieve 100% self-sufficiency of raw materials, but also reduce the purchase cost by 50% It is estimated that this year, it can save more than 50 million yuan " Xie said In order to maintain its leading position in the industry, in December 2018, kuncai technology raised 1.8 billion yuan by itself and started to build 100000 tons of cosmetics grade and automobile grade titanium dioxide projects (with 800000 tons of titanium dichloride as raw materials) and 120000 tons of iron oxide projects (with 400000 tons of iron trichloride as raw materials) "The whole construction period of the project is about more than 2 years After the project is put into operation, the capacity of titanium dichloride of the company is expected to reach 1 million tons by adding the 200000 tons of titanium dichloride project to be put into operation." Xie Bingkun said that in addition to the company's internal use, the rest can be converted into about 100000 tons of cosmetics grade and automobile grade titanium dioxide In the past, raw material supply chain was a short board for kuncai technology to compete with multinational companies After several years of catching up, kuncai technology has successfully built a complete ecological industry chain At present, only 10% of the company's raw materials, including auxiliary materials, are purchased outside, and 90% of them are self supplied To be the forerunner of new technology "only through constant innovation can we become the forerunner of new technology and occupy the global high-end market." This is what Xie Bingkun often says Before the quality assurance director Hu qilai came to kuncai technology, he worked in a foreign company of the world's top 500 One day, when he came to the workshop of kuncai technology and saw the whole process of pearl pigment production, he was amazed "It's the first time I've seen 28 processes and hundreds of equipment needed for a little bit of pearlescent paint powder on my fingernails." Hu told reporters "The chemical reaction of different materials is between 1 and 3 microns, with a difference of 1 microns The color of pearlescent powder will be different It takes a lot of skill " Many of these technologies are not available in books, and all rely on long-term practice and exploration in the production line "The production line built by kuncai is not to be moved from others, but to be customized and welded on site." Xie Bingkun said that all the crafts are designed and created by himself, which condenses the collective wisdom German colleagues came to kuncai technology for a visit and wanted to take photos of the production line Xie Bingkun immediately agreed "Although shooting, even if they all shoot back, they can't do our level." Titanium dioxide production by extraction hydrochloric acid method is a significant contribution of kuncai technology to the industry The company has invested more than 60 million yuan before and after 8 years of research and pilot test, which has been successfully applied to cosmetics, thermal spraying (porcelain coating), advanced batteries, fuel cells, water purification and pharmaceutical fields At present, this process technology has obtained 6 international and domestic invention patents and passed the first set of Process Certification in the industry "This major innovation not only solved the production capacity problem, realized the requirements of high purity, ultra-low heavy metal content, environmental protection and safety, energy conservation and emission reduction of products, but also left many competitors far behind." Xie Bingkun said happily Walking into the kuncai technology phase II plant area, which covers an area of nearly 500 mu, the reporter saw that there are 10 standard plants, each of which is nearly 20000 square meters, and only a few workers in each plant are observing the operation of the equipment, basically realizing the fully automatic and unmanned production process and technology It is understood that kuncai technology has developed 30 automatic, intelligent and environmental protection new pearlescent material special production lines, all of which are ahead of the peers Through these intelligent production lines, kuncai technology has developed many high value-added products For example, the ceramaya series products, which won the Jung technological innovation award, overturned the history of producing high flash point products based on flake alumina, and broke the pattern of exclusive monopoly of the series products by foreign enterprises "We develop dozens of new products every year." Xie Bingkun disclosed that at present, the company has hundreds of innovative achievements and dozens of invention patents, and has mastered many key technologies of pearlescent materials The series of pearlescent materials produced by the company, such as peacock, diamond dragon, seramaya, crystal dragon and FC, are all leading the global peers "The more sophisticated the technology, the higher the product, the higher the profit margin." Xie Bingkun said that 80% of the value of pearlescent materials industry is concentrated in high-end products (automobile level and cosmetics level, etc.), and the price difference between high-end and low-end products is as high as three times Kuncai technology is one of the earliest high-end products enterprises in China and one that master high-end pearlescent material technology In 2013, the company completed the customer certification test, and began to supply goods in 2016, 400 tons in 2017, and more than 1000 tons in 2018 The trend of high-end product market volume has become According to the orders in hand, in 2019, kuncai technology will become the second largest supplier of automotive coatings in the world For the future development, Xie Bingkun said: "kuncai technology is making every effort to create a national brand containing the spirit of ingenuity, so that people's lives are colorful, and kuncai is shining!"