16 tons of pmma set to launch! project surge ignites industry boom, why has this material sparked a frenzy?

In October 2025, the news that Shandong Zhemei New Materials Co., Ltd.'s project to produce 160,000 tons per year of high-end optical PMMA materials is about to commence production has attracted widespread attention in the materials industry. This project, located at the intersection of the Yellow River Delta Efficient Ecological Economic Zone and the Shandong Peninsula Blue Economic Zone, has a total investment of 2 billion yuan and adopts a phased construction model, marking a key step forward in the industrialization process of domestic optical-grade PMMA.

Under the long-standing dominance of international giants in the global PMMA industry, the commissioning of Shandong Zhemei is just a microcosm of the accelerated development of China's PMMA industry since 2025.

From the installation peak of Zhejiang Petrochemical's world's largest single-line 180,000-ton/year PMMA plant to the successive advancement of projects in Shenzhen Xintao, Chengdu Pengzhou, and others, China's high-end PMMA industry is experiencing a wave of investment enthusiasm.

Source: Sunq.com

01 2025The industry has seen major actions this year, with high-end PMMA.Investment boom surging

The year 2025 will be a pivotal year for the PMMA industry in China, especially in the field of high-end optical-grade products. Major manufacturers are noticeably accelerating their strategic plans, and several milestone projects have made substantial progress.

July 2025Zhejiang PetrochemicalThe construction of the 180,000-ton/year PMMA plant has entered the peak installation phase, with plans to commence operations by the end of 2025. This project is not only the largest single-line PMMA project in terms of production capacity worldwide but also the first in the domestic market to use continuous bulk polymerization technology for high-end optical-grade PMMA. It utilizes the optical-grade PMMA technology package jointly developed by Zhejiang University's Quzhou Research Institute and Zhejiang Zhiying Petrochemical, marking a significant technological breakthrough for China in the field of high-end new materials.

Source of the image: Ruizi Holdings Group

On June 12, the Dongying Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment releasedShandong Zhemei New MaterialsPublic announcement of the acceptance of the environmental impact report for the high-end optical-grade PMMA project with an annual production capacity of 160,000 tons by the limited company. The total investment of the project is 1 billion yuan, and it will be constructed in two phases. Once the first phase is completed, it will have an annual production capacity of 80,000 tons of PMMA, and the second phase will also have an annual production capacity of 80,000 tons of PMMA.

On May 11, an optical-grade high polymer new material production project with a total investment of 2.5 billion yuan officially settled in the Chengdu Pengzhou Economic Development Zone. The project adopts the continuous bulk polymerization production technology independently developed by the Institute of Process Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is planned to be constructed in two phases, with the second phase extending into high-end manufacturing fields such as optical lenses and liquid crystal light guide plates.

In early May,Shenzhen New WaveThe subsidiary Longnan Xintao Acrylic Technology Co., Ltd.'s 20,000 tons/year PMMA resin production line has been officially put into operation, utilizing a continuous bulk polymerization process.

The common feature of these projects is their focus on high-end optical-grade PMMA products, with most of them employing the bulk polymerization process. This process is capable of producing products with higher purity, making it particularly suitable for the production of high-end optical-grade PMMA. However, it demands higher standards for equipment and technology. The collective effort by domestic enterprises to tackle this technological route demonstrates the technical confidence and strategic determination of Chinese companies in the field of high-end materials.

02 The industrial landscape is changing, from foreign capital dominance to accelerated domestic substitution.

For a long time, the global PMMA industry has exhibited a highly concentrated competitive landscape, dominated by a few multinational companies such as Röhm, Chi Mei, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, and Arkema. These leading enterprises account for more than 70% of the global total production capacity. They possess core technologies across the entire industrial chain, from raw material refining and polymerization processes to product application development, and have established a monopoly in the high-end optical-grade PMMA sector.

China, as a major global producer and consumer of PMMA, has long faced the issue of being "large but not strong" in its industrial structure. The production capacity is primarily focused on low-end products, with foreign enterprises dominating the market. Local companies are small in scale, numerous, and vary in technical level. As the global display industry shifts to China, the rapid adoption of new energy vehicles, and the growing demand for 5G communication equipment, the market gap for high-end optical-grade PMMA continues to widen. The need for domestic substitution has become particularly urgent.

In recent years, a number of domestic companies have taken the lead in overcoming technical bottlenecks: Wanhua Chemical and Suzhou Shuangxiang have successively tackled the technical challenges of light guide plate-grade PMMA products, and Jiangxi Yiliang has achieved the production of specialized materials for 5G antenna covers. These technological breakthroughs have laid the foundation for domestic substitution. Production capacity data shows this trend: by the end of 2024, China's PMMA production capacity is approximately 735,350 tons per year, with more than 1.5 million tons per year of capacity planned for construction in the future. It is expected that the total domestic PMMA production capacity will exceed 2.5 million tons, achieving more than a threefold increase in capacity.

In terms of regional distribution, the current domestic PMMA production capacity is highly concentrated in the East China region, accounting for 87.71% of the total national capacity. However, planned and under-construction capacities are gradually expanding nationwide. The Shandong Zhemei project, located in Shandong, exemplifies this regional layout evolution. In the future, the focus of PMMA production will no longer be limited to the East China region, which will help optimize industrial distribution and reduce regional concentration risks.

03Domestic PMMACapacity Situation Review

The main PMMA enterprises in China currently include Shuangxiang Co., Ltd., Wanhua Chemical Group Co., Ltd., Zhenjiang Chimei Chemical Co., Ltd., Rohm Chemical (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Mitsubishi Chemical, Rike Chemical, Zhejiang Petrochemical, Nanjing Chengzhi, and Shenzhen Xintao, among others.

Zhejiang Petrochemical: The high-performance resin project under construction plans to build an optical-grade PMMA production facility with an annual capacity of 180,000 tons.

Shuangxiang Co., Ltd.: The products are positioned as high-performance optical-grade PMMA, which are applied in fields such as LCD light guide plates and LED lighting equipment. The current optical-grade PMMA production capacity is 155,000 tons per year, with 80,000 tons per year at the Suzhou facility and 75,000 tons per year at the first phase of the Chongqing base. The second phase of the Chongqing 300,000 tons/year PMMA/MS project, with a capacity of 225,000 tons per year, is underway. Once fully completed, the total production capacity will increase to 380,000 tons per year.

Wanhua Chemical: At the beginning of 2019, the PMMA resin production unit was officially put into operation and produced qualified products. As of 2023, the production capacity is 160,000 tons per year.

Hammi New Energy Coal Chemical: Planned production capacity of 400,000 tons (including MMA/PMMA), has been approved by the National Development and Reform Commission.

Zhenjiang Chimei: The current PMMA production capacity is 130,000 tons per year.

Röhm Chemical (Shanghai): Current PMMA production capacity is 100,000 tons per year.

Mitsubishi Chemical: There are three production bases in China with a total production capacity of 130,000 tons per year. Among them, Mitsubishi Chemical Advanced Materials (Nantong) Co., Ltd. has a capacity of 70,000 tons per year, and Mitsubishi Chemical Raw Materials (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. has a capacity of 60,000 tons per year.

Rike Chemical: The wholly-owned subsidiary Shandong Qiheng New Materials has an annual production project of 330,000 tons of high polymer new materials, including 140,000 tons/year of PMMA. Among this, the 45,000 tons/year PMMA project has entered trial production in the first quarter of 2024, with a planned additional capacity of 95,000 tons/year.

Nanjing Chengzhi: The high-end optical new material project plans to construct 100,000 tons/year of PMMA, scheduled to be completed and put into production in 2027.

Xintao: Longnan Xintao Acrylic Technology Co., Ltd. currently has an annual capacity of 20,000 tons of PMMA, and plans to establish Zhuhai Xintao Optical Materials Co., Ltd. with an annual capacity of 120,000 tons of optical-grade PMMA.

Zhejiang NHU: Planned capacity of 40,000 tons per year, currently in the planning stage.

Qixiang Tengda: Planned production capacity of 100,000 tons per year, currently in the planning stage.

CNOOC Fudao (Hainan): Planned production capacity of 50,000 tons per year, currently in planning.

04 The bulk polymerization process will be high-end optical grade PMMA.The optimal solution?

In the PMMA family, optical-grade PMMA is considered a high-end product, with superior performance compared to standard-grade PMMA. Through molecular structure design and process optimization, its optical purity can reach 99.99%, and its light transmittance is increased to over 93%, surpassing the 92% of ordinary glass. It has become a core manufacturing material for high-performance devices such as LED lenses, automotive lights, optical lenses, and light guide plates.

From the perspective of production processes, the current PMMA production technologies mainly include suspension polymerization, solution polymerization, and bulk polymerization. Let's focus on introducing the bulk polymerization of PMMA. This method involves a polymerization reaction of the monomer under the action of an initiator and heat, without adding solvents or other dispersing agents. The products produced by this method have high purity and are particularly suitable for producing high-end optical-grade PMMA. In contrast, solution polymerization uses solvents in the polymerization reaction, featuring simple operation and simplified equipment, but due to the use of a large amount of solvent, it has high energy consumption during devolatilization, and the product has a higher residual solvent content. Suspension polymerization involves high-temperature, high-speed polymerization. Products with high heat resistance have relatively poor thermal stability during molding and are prone to thermal decomposition. Moreover, the products contain high levels of dispersing agents and residual monomers, and the process generates large amounts of wastewater, increasing treatment costs.

In recent years, with the continuous advancement of PMMA modification and composite material technology, its applications in emerging fields such as medical polymer materials, optical display materials, and plastic optical fibers have been gradually expanded. Particularly driven by the development of new display technology and automotive lightweighting, optical-grade PMMA has seen further application expansion in areas such as light guide plates, display screen panels, and automotive headlamp lenses, bringing significant market development opportunities to the PMMA industry.

Since 2022, China's PMMA import volume has continued to decline, while export volume has steadily increased. This trend became even clearer in 2024: the import volume decreased to 162,800 tons, and the export volume increased to 54,000 tons, resulting in a more than one-quarter year-on-year reduction in net imports. This set of data clearly indicates that domestically produced high-end PMMA is gradually gaining market recognition, significantly reducing dependence on foreign brands.

Looking ahead, a new round of capacity competition will push the industry into a more intense competitive stage. However, this is precisely the necessary path for industrial upgrading. Only through this baptism can local enterprises truly transform in high-end niche areas, evolving from followers to peers, and ultimately gaining control over the development of the industry.

Edited by: Lily

Source: Special Plastics World, Zhuochuang Information, Nylon Industry Chain Shao Jun, Zhiyan Consulting, official announcements and news reports from various companies.