With the release of new NBR capacity in China, the competition in the domestic market will become increasingly fierce.If the NBR products of Lanzhou petrochemical company want to keep advanced, it must improve the quality and safety of existing products, strengthen the research of NBR modification technology and develop series of functional NBR products.

1. High quality, environmental protection NBR product

Gradually improve the NBR product quality, the production of clean, safe and high-performance NBR products, leading the industry development direction to realize the environmental protection of antioxidants, terminators and other additives, and improve the safety of products.

2. NBR brand differentiation and serialization

NBR brand differentiation and serialization need to be realized from the synthesis method, key indicators, processing performance, application requirements and other aspects, first improving the low nitrile and ultra high nitrile brand products, and then further realizing the brand differentiation and proprietary content of each nitrile.

 1）Development of low temperature low nitrile content NBR

China petroleum and petrochemical research institute has developed a series of low-temperature NBR resistance technology, reserved the small test technology of NBR1805, NBR1806 and NBR1807 products, and completed the industrialization technology development of NBR1806. It is expected to produce in the 50,000 tons/year nitrile unit of Lanzhou Petrochemical Company.From product development to application technology development, it mainly focuses on the combination of uniform nitrile distribution control, Mooney viscosity stabilization and differential control, and processing technology research of low nitrile NBR (especially processing and matching technology of military models).Low nitrile NBR (17% ~ 20%) has a good balance between low temperature resistance, elasticity and oil resistance, which can be widely used in aviation, packaging, gasket, oil seal, belt and other oil resistance fields requiring low temperature flexibility. It is one of the main series of NBR manufacturers.

2）Ultra high nitrile NBR

 Acrylonitrile NBR with a content of over 43% acrylonitrile has high oil resistance, low oil and gas permeability and elasticity. It is widely used in the fields of oil drilling and exploitation and it is a high-end NBR product with high added value.China petroleum and petrochemical research institute and the Lanzhou Petrochemical Company have carried out combined with acrylonitrile > 45% of the ultra high nitrile oil resistant NBR product development. Through the accurate control of combining door nitrile content, viscosity, small technology development has been achieved. Now they focus on developing high nitrile NBR processing technology research, mainly for oil drilling and open with products processing technology research.By completing the development of ultra high nitrile content NBR, Lanzhou Petrochemical NBR products will be fully serialized.

3. High value-added NBR product development

 1）Carboxyl NBR (XNBR)

 The introduction of carboxyl modification into NBR can significantly improve the wear resistance, adhesion and aging resistance of NBR [3]. The product is mainly used to prepare rubber products, adhesives and mechanical parts with higher requirements on strength, oil resistance and wear resistance [4]. It is widely used in aerospace, equipment manufacturing and other fields.

As an early research institute of carboxyl NBR, China institute of petroleum and petrochemicals has developed liquid carboxyl butyronitrile and solid carboxyl NBR technology. The existing liquid carboxyl rubber of lxnbr-40 and lxnbr-26 are mainly used by enterprises in the fields of aerospace and national defense.In the face of increasingly fierce competition, key technologies such as carboxyl copolymerization, low gel control, and carboxyl butyronitrile latex demulsification and condensation will be deeply studied to further develop high-performance carboxyl NBR series products, which are expected to be industrialized and mass produced in Lanzhou Petrochemical Company in 2015.

2）Hydrogenated NBR (HNBR)

 Hydrogenated NBR (HNBR), also known as highly saturated NBR, is partially or completely hydrogenated for the unsaturated double bond on the NBR carbon chain. There are three main preparation methods: hydrogenation of NBR solution, hydrogenation of NBR emulsion and ethylene-acrylonitrile copolymerization [5].Its main manufacturers are Lanxis Corporation (10,000t/year) and Ruiong Chemical Corporation (12,000t/year), with a total world production capacity of 22,000 t/year. It’s mainly used in automotive oil seals, fuel system components, automotive belt, drilling cage and mud piston, printing and textile rubber roller, tank belt gasket, aerospace seals, air conditioning seals, damping materials and other fields [6-7].

The production and application of HNBR in China are still in the initial stage. In the early stage, only lanzhou petrochemical company has built a 30 ton/year production unit, with brand lh-9901 and lh-9902.In 2011, Shanghai Zannan Technology Co., ltd. launched more than 10 brands of HNBR, combining with nitrile range of 25% ~ 50%. On the basis of the original research, the Petrochemical Research Institute has achieved breakthroughs in hydrogenation catalyst preparation, heterogeneous hydrogenation and other technologies.At the same time, the processing coordination technology has made some progress, which lays a foundation for the further promotion and application of CNPC HNBR.

 3）Butadiene-acrylonitrile-isoprene rubber (NIBR)

 Isoprene modified NBR technology (NIBR) is a kind of a special high-performance NBR with high strength, high elasticity, easy to process. mainly used in printing, aerospace and other fields [8].The key technical points are the sequence structure control of isoprene in copolymerization or grafting reaction, the combination of nitrile and Mooney viscosity control, and the processing coordination technology.

4）Liquid CTBN

 It mainly develops functional liquid NBR, such as carboxyl group, hydroxyl group, mercapto group and amino group group [9].The introduction of various groups can improve the adhesion between NBR and the interface and the compatibility between NBR and resin.The products are mainly used as adhesives, modifiers, military and civilian materials for modification and bonding.On the basis of the existing research, China Institute of Petroleum and Petrochemical Industry further carried out in-depth control and adjustment of molecular weight, accurate control of viscosity and sequence structure, and developed a series of liquid NBR products.

5）Powder NBR

Powder NBR is characterized by its excellent processing properties with yield about 10% of NBR yield, widely used in the field of resin modification.Lanzhou Petrochemical Company has a 3000t/year powder rubber plant. China Institute of Petroleum and Petrochemical Industry has a very mature rubber powder technology. The next step is to focus on the development of serialized and specialized powder rubber brands.

 6）Others

PVC/NBR co-sinking adhesive, plasticized NBR, and nano-modified NBR are also key research points at present, which can effectively enrich NBR product brands and improve competitiveness.

Lanzhou petrochemical NBR products with complete brands and stable performance will further improve product quality and safety, develop low nitrile and ultra high nitrile series products, and focus on developing high value-added NBR products.In recent years, in the old plant modification, new plant construction and new product development has yielded fruitful results including improving production capacity, improving product quality, developing more than 10 brand new NBR products, enriching the Lanzhou Petrochemical NBR products brand effectively, improving the ability to resist risks, so products are now able to meet different application fields in the domestic market demand for general type, special type NBR.