10 Dec 2020 CFRS Annual Conference – Facing the Challenges and Opportunities of the Flame Retardant Industry

The Chinese Flame Retardant Association (CFRS) Annual Conference was held in Zhuhai on October 18-22, 2020.

Hu Qianlin, secretary general of the Chinese Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation (CPCIF), said that China’s flame retardant industry is facing some challenges such as the lack of leading companies; the industrial structure is unreasonable, high-end products are dependent on imports, and low-end products are flooding the market. In addition, the production process of some products has encountered tremendous pressure from regulations. HBCD and other products, for example, will soon be banned from production and use in accordance with the Stockholm Convention.

Academician Duan, Xue of the Chinese Academy of Sciences pointed out the next developments and trend of the Flame retardant industry are to focus on the more sustainable development flame retardant materials, starting with the production method, and the entire life cycle of plastics.

Dr. Grace Han, Chairman of the BSEF China, shared the “challenges and opportunities of relevant international and domestic regulations and standards for the flame retardant industry”. She pointed out that flame retardants are facing challenges from all aspects around the world now, in particular that of more burdensome chemical regulations. At the same time, the improvement of fire protection standards has brought opportunities to the flame retardant industry. So the industry should actively participate in the formulation of relevant domestic and international standards and regulations, and say “NO” to any ban on flame retardants without scientific basis.

At the meeting, the second “Scientific Understanding of Flame Retardants” university essay call was officially launched. According to Harry Du, Secretary-General of BSEF China, this activity will help promote the scientific understanding of flame retardants in the whole society. Different from the first university essay call, in addition to the collection of articles, this time it will also collect non-article works, encouraging students to use video, audio, animation, comics and other methods to contribute. The submission deadline is March 1, 2021. The awards will be published on major media in the chemical industry such as China Chemical Industry News, China Chemical Information Weekly, and main WeChat platforms of the industry.