Industry Background and Current Development

HMDA is a critical raw material supporting the upgrading of the nylon new materials industry. Innovation and breakthroughs in its production technology are of great significance to the development of China’s chemical industry. Currently, the industry relies on the butadiene-based process to produce adiponitrile and then HMDA. Although mature, this route has notable shortcomings: on one hand, production costs remain high due to fluctuations in butadiene feedstock prices; on the other hand, the process is complex, with extremely high technical barriers, and key patents have long been monopolized by overseas enterprises.

Against this backdrop, China Risun Group pioneered an independent R&D path, developing a new technology and process to directly produce HMDA from caprolactam. This innovation breaks industry monopolies, overcomes critical technical barriers, and opens up a new route for HMDA production.

China Risun’s R&D Journey and Innovation Achievements

As the world’s largest independent coke producer and supplier, and a global leader in differentiated coal chemical operations, China Risun Group has closely aligned with national strategic needs and accurately grasped industrial transformation trends. As early as 2011, the company foresaw the potential of the caprolactam industry, expanding its scale while establishing R&D teams to carry out independent research on new processes and technologies for caprolactam and downstream industries.

Over more than a decade, China Risun’s R&D team conducted over a thousand laboratory-scale experiments, steadily advancing to pilot-scale construction and stable operation, and ultimately achieving full industrial implementation. Throughout the journey from lab-scale to pilot-scale, process development, and industrialization, the team tackled over a hundred research topics, secured dozens of core patents with fully independent intellectual property rights, and successfully developed the innovative process route of directly producing HMDA from caprolactam.

Given the disruptive, pioneering, and strategic value of this achievement, Shandong Province has designated China Risun Group’s project as a provincial key engineering initiative.

China Risun’s Core Industrial Advantages and Competitiveness

The commissioning of the HMDA project highlights China Risun’s strengths in industrial synergy and R&D innovation, significantly enhancing its core competitiveness in nylon new materials and consolidating its leadership position in the chemical industry.

1. Stable and Efficient Industrial Synergy 

The stable operation and full-scale production of the HMDA plant will synergize with the Group’s existing 810,000-ton/year caprolactam industry chain and upstream production lines at Yuncheng Industrial Park, including adipic acid, cyclohexanone, and nitric acid. This integration enables resource complementarity, technological upgrading, capacity expansion, and maximized efficiency.

China Risun Group has a strong foundation in the aromatics industry chain, extending from benzene to caprolactam to HMDA, and further downstream into high-end industries such as polymer chips, fiber spinning, weaving, injection molding, modification, and polyurethane. This accelerates the construction of a full nylon 6 + nylon 66 + specialty nylon industry chain covering “upstream raw materials – midstream monomers – downstream products.”

2. Continuous R&D and Innovation Capacity

Compared with traditional processes, the caprolactam-to-HMDA technology offers clear advantages: simplified process flow, lower investment costs, higher safety, and improved raw material conversion rates.

Both the process and catalyst are protected by China Risun’s independent intellectual property rights, breaking through domestic and international technical barriers in polyamide raw materials and filling a critical gap in China.

3. Ongoing Process Optimization and Cost Reduction

China Risun’s caprolactam-to-HMDA technology achieves significantly lower unit production costs compared with the butadiene route. Future integration of R&D and production will further reduce operating costs.

As the world’s second-largest caprolactam producer, China Risun’s scale advantages, industry chain integration, and comprehensive supporting infrastructure make its HMDA products highly cost-competitive.

Future Planning and Development Strategy

Around the caprolactam industry chain, China Risun Group has already developed and reserved multiple technologies and products, including HMDA and elastic nylon. With the continuous stabilization and upgrading of its core technologies, China Risun will expand its scale and inject new momentum into China’s nylon 66 and related industries.

Looking ahead, China Risun Group will remain committed to innovation-driven development and service-oriented growth, deepening its vertically integrated model, strategically cultivating high-end chemicals and new materials, and systematically strengthening its new materials portfolio. The company is dedicated to helping China further overcome chemical and new materials technology barriers, building a modernized, autonomous, and controllable industrial system, and achieving domestic substitution of key materials such as nylon 66—contributing China Risun’s strength to the nation.

TSUKUBA, Japan, Apr 22, 2026 - (ACN Newswire) - Discovering and characterizing new materials is important for unlocking advances in fields like clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and improved infrastructure. Researchers use machine learning and other computational tools to help them, but the trial-and-error nature of the process creates specific challenges. The research produces large amounts of experimental and computational data, and scientists need tools that can track and store not only the results but also the chain of reasoning behind them.

A new system called pinax, published in the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials: Methods, provides precisely those features. Developed by engineers at Japan’s National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), pinax captures the entire process of developing new materials, including machine learning workflows and decision-making processes. “By formalizing both successful and unsuccessful trial-and-error processes, pinax enhances reproducibility, accountability, and knowledge sharing while maintaining strict data governance,” says Satoshi Minamoto of NIMS, the study’s lead author.

Machine learning models are playing an ever-larger role in materials discovery and characterization. While the models are powerful tools, the reasoning processes they use are generally opaque. Researchers don’t know what considerations and trial-and-error processes went into their final predictions. “The system introduced in this study visualizes these invisible processes. This enables others to review, verify, and build upon the path to the conclusions,” says Minamoto.

Minamoto highlights the importance of such access in applications where safety, reproducibility, and accountability are important, saying that this work “demonstrates how transparent AI systems can transform scientific discovery into a more reliable, efficient, and socially responsible endeavor.”

The team tested pinax using two case studies: one on predicting steel properties and another using transfer learning to predict the thermal conductivity of polymers. The system made it possible to link the model’s performance predictions to the specific data or model aspects that influenced them, and to reproduce complex, multi-stage workflows. “In particular, the transfer-learning example highlights pinax’s ability to track how information flows between intertwined datasets and models, making every step in the reasoning process explicitly traceable,” says Minamoto.

The engineers plan to expand pinax towards an autonomous, closed-loop materials discovery system. By integrating pinax’s tracking capabilities with automated experimental and simulation systems, they aim to create a loop that can use data generation, machine learning models, and decision-making systems to systematically and independently carry out the entire research cycle.

Further information 
Satoshi Minamoto
National Institute for Materials Science
minamoto.satoshi@nims.go.jp

Paper: https://doi.org/10.1080/27660400.2026.2629051 

About Science and Technology of Advanced Materials: Methods (STAM-M)

STAM Methods is an open access sister journal of Science and Technology of Advanced Materials (STAM), and focuses on emergent methods and tools for improving and/or accelerating materials developments, such as methodology, apparatus, instrumentation, modeling, high-through put data collection, materials/process informatics, databases, and programming. https://www.tandfonline.com/STAM-M

Dr Kazuya Saito
STAM Methods Publishing Director 
SAITO.Kazuya@nims.go.jp

Press release distributed by Asia Research News for Science and Technology of Advanced Materials.

Following a rigorous screening process, this year’s Ichiro Tanaka Awards, for 3 million yen each, were presented to Professor Takanori Iwasaki of Kyushu University and Professor Toshinori Fujie of Institute of Science Tokyo. In addition, four research projects received the Innovative Precious Metals Award, and five KIRAMEKI Awards were presented.

The TANAKA Memorial Foundation undertakes programs designed to foster developments in new precious metal fields while contributing to the advancement of science, technology, and socioeconomics for the overall enrichment of society. The research grant program was launched in FY1999 and has continued each year since with the goal of supporting the various challenges of the “new world opened up by precious metals.” With “Forging a better tomorrow with ‘Hirameki’ and ‘Kirameki’” adopted as the catchphrase, applications were invited for research and development themes that contribute toward the continued creation of a better future using the creativity of researchers and the potential of precious metals. A total of 244 applications were received for this year, the program’s 27th year, and a total of 27 research grants for a combined total of 19.8 million yen were awarded.

The names of the recipients of the Ichiro Tanaka Award, their research, and the reasons for their selection are below.

Ichiro Tanaka Award
Professor Takanori Iwasaki of Kyushu University
Chemical Recycling of Recalcitrant Polymer Materials Using Hydrogen Transport
This research seeks to address the degradation of polyurethane using a proprietary precious metal complex catalyst. It has been demonstrated that polyurethane can be decomposed by hydrogen gas. As the development of chemical recycling methods for polyurethane used in cushioning materials such as automotive seats and mattresses is essential for promoting the reuse of waste plastics, it was highly rated as research and development that makes a significant contribution to the realization of an environmentally sustainable society.

Ichiro Tanaka Award
Professor Toshinori Fujie of Institute of Science Tokyo
Development of Biodegradable Nanosheet Electrodes Composed of Inkjet-Printed Gold Wires and Their Application to Plant Health Measurement Systems
This research measures changes in the surface potential of plant leaves in real time by formation of an array of gold electrodes on a polymer ultrathin film substrate. By investigating materials with minimal impact on living organisms, it is expected that raw data can be obtained from plants. Furthermore, the research was highly rated for its potential to reveal not only changes in bio-surface potential in plants but also changes in various conditions in animals.

Four Innovative Precious Metals Awards, 16 HIRAMEKI Awards, and five KIRAMEKI Awards were also granted. The recipients and an overview of the Precious Metals Research Grants are indicated below. Applications for the FY2026 research grants are scheduled to open in the fall.

Overview of the 2025 Precious Metals Research Grants

[Conditions]
New research and development themes—either using precious metals or that can be applied to precious metals—that contribute to the creation of a sustainable future, with research content that falls under any of the following.
- New technology related to precious metals (new materials, processing methods, process development, etc.)
- Research that brings about innovative evolution in product development (new functions, process development, computational science, etc.)
- Research and development of new products using precious metals
* Precious metal refers to eight elements of platinum, gold, silver, palladium, rhodium, iridium, ruthenium and osmium.
* If development is conducted jointly (or planned to be) with other material manufacturers, please indicate so.
* Products that have already been commercialized, put to practical use, or that are planned are not eligible.

[Grant Amounts] (Maximum amounts from a grant pool of 20 million yen)
- Umekichi Tanaka Award: 10,000,000 yen
- Ichiro Tanaka Award: 3,000,000 yen
- Innovative Precious Metals Award: 1,000,000 yen
- HIRAMEKI Award: 300,000 yen
- KIRAMEKI Award: 1,000,000 yen
* The grant amount is treated as a scholarship donation.
* Awards may not be granted in some cases.

[Eligible Candidates]
- Personnel who work for educational institutions in Japan (universities, graduate schools, or technical colleges) or public and related research institutions may participate.
- As long as the applicant is affiliated with a research institution in Japan, the base of activity can be in Japan or overseas.
- KIRAMEKI Awards are for researchers under the age of 37 as of April 1, 2025.

[Application Period]
- 9 am, September 1, 2025 (Mon) - 5 pm, November 28, 2025 (Fri)

[Inquiries Concerning the Research Grant Program]
Precious Metals Research Grants Office
Global Marketing / R&D Supervisory Department, TANAKA PRECIOUS METAL TECHNOLOGIES Co., Ltd.
2-6-6 Nihonbashi Kayabacho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 103-0025
E-mail: joseikin@ml.tanaka.co.jp
TANAKA Memorial Foundation website: https://tanaka-foundation.or.jp

TANAKA Memorial Foundation
Organization Name: TANAKA Memorial Foundation
Address: 2-6-6 Nihonbashi Kayabacho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Representative: Hideya Okamoto (Special Advisor, TANAKA Holdings Co., Ltd.)
Incorporated: 2015
Purpose of Business: To provide grants for research related to precious metals to contribute to the development and cultivation of new fields for precious metals, and to the development of science, technology, and the social economy.
Areas of Business:
- Provision of grants for scientific and technological research related to precious metals.
- Recognition of excellent analysis of precious metals and holding of seminars and other events.

TANAKA PRECIOUS METAL TECHNOLOGIES Co., Ltd.
Headquarters: 2-6-6 Nihonbashi Kayabacho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Representative: Koichiro Tanaka, CEO
Founded: 1885
Incorporated: 1918
Capital: 500 million yen
Employees: 2,862 (Including overseas subsidiaries) (December 31, 2025)
Sales: 419,177,145,000 yen (FY2025)
Main businesses: Manufacture, sales, import and export of precious metals (platinum, gold, silver, and others) and various types of industrial precious metals products.
URL: https://tanaka-preciousmetals.com
(TANAKA Industrial Precious Metal Materials Portal)

Press Inquiries
TANAKA PRECIOUS METAL GROUP Co., Ltd.
https://tanaka-preciousmetals.com/en/inquiries-for-media/

Press Release: https://www.acnnewswire.com/docs/files/20260331_EN.pdf

HONG KONG, Mar 28, 2026 - (ACN Newswire) - On March 27, CALB Group Co., Ltd. ("CALB" or "the Company," stock code: 3931.HK) announced its audited annual results for the year ended 31 December 2025 (the "Reporting Period"). During the Reporting Period, the Company’s total revenue for the year was RMB 44,400.07 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 60%; profit for the year was RMB 2,095.22 million, a year-on-year surge of over 140%, demonstrating a leap in profitability and continued momentum for high-quality development.

In core business sectors, the Company’s market share for both power batteries and energy storage cells climbed significantly. In October 2025, CALB’s power battery installations reached a historic milestone, ranking among the global top three for the first time on a monthly basis. In early 2026, the Company stood out in the battery industry again with a huge growth of 630% YoY in the commercial EV sector.

Deepening Global Market Presence with Dual Breakthroughs in Premium Market Positioning and Large-Scale Production

In 2025, as the global new energy industry flourished, shipments of power batteries and energy storage cells soared, with overseas markets becoming the core growth engine. Backed by all-scenario product capabilities, CALB accelerated its strategic layout toward both premium positioning and large-scale development.

The Company’s market share in the passenger vehicle sector reached a new high. Its 5C super-charged battery, which has reached a monthly delivery sale of 20,000+ sets, exclusively supports popular models such as XPeng’s new P7 long-range version, supporting Xpeng further enhance its market competitiveness with a record-breaking driving mileage of 3,961km within 24h. Furthermore, CALB successfully entered the supply chains of international OEMs such as Toyota, Volkswagen, and Hyundai. Simultaneously, the Company deepened strategic partnerships with HUAWEI and Xiaomi, laying the groundwork for mass-scale delivery in 2026.

The commercial vehicle segment also saw explosive growth, with shipments achieving a multiple-fold increase in 2025. With over 468 new vehicle models announced, the Company achieved full-scenario coverage and showed strong momentum as commercial battery shipments surged 630% YoY in early 2026. Overseas, the Company secured major rail transit and bus projects in Europe and won multiple international client awards.

In the energy storage market, CALB achieved dual breakthroughs. Internationally, the Company entered the top-tier supplier lists in South Africa, Latin America, the U.S., and Israel. The next-generation “ZHIJIU” 600Ah+ cell secured mass production nominations. Domestically, partnerships with giants like SPIC (State Power Investment Corporation Limited) and CTG (China Three Gorges Corporation) were strengthened, further advancing the all-category energy layout in energy storage.

Furthermore, the Company has established a forward-looking presence in emerging new energy sectors such as ship, low-altitude economy, and robotics, which represents a core highlight for the capital markets. In the shipping sector, several benchmark projects have already been implemented with large-scale deliveries, providing solid support for stable earnings growth. In the low-altitude sector, powered by core solid-state battery technologies, the Company has successfully commenced mass production of batteries for flying cars and secured exclusive nominations for major eVTOL models, perfectly aligning with the development trend of a trillion-dollar market. In the robotics sector, the Company has completed its product layout based on breakthroughs in all-solid-state battery technology. With batch deliveries set to begin, the Company is preemptively securing its position in the core energy track for humanoid robots, opening up significant growth opportunities for its future performance.

Continuous Technology Leadership and All-Scenario Product Matrix Advancement

In 2025, CALB achieved key breakthroughs in high-performance batteries, solid-state batteries, and advanced manufacturing. Product series such as “UP,” “ZHIYUAN,” “ZHIJIU,” and “Boundless” continue to define industry trends.

Specifically, CALB is leading the way in super-charged and high-power battery technologies. The Company’s 5C super-charged batteries have reached large-scale commercialization, while the 10C super-charged batteries completed design and development in 2025. The 20C high-power batteries developed for HEV/PHEV models have been delivered for mass production to Geely and Dongfeng. For the luxury supercar and racing segments, the Company has completed prototype testing of its 25C high-power batteries, which boast megawatt-level discharge capabilities. Additionally, the advanced R46 cells have reached mass production and are being supplied to top-tier eVTOL customers, securing the No.1 market share in the sector.

Technological upgrades were also synchronized across energy storage and commercial battery sectors. The “ZHIYUAN” series achieved 2C super-charged for heavy-duty trucks and a long lifespan of 10 years or 2 million kilometers, while light commercial EV batteries can support an upgraded mileage of over 350 kilometers. The “ZHIJIU” 588Ah/684Ah cells achieve zero degradation for 3 years and 15,000+ cycles, with an energy density of 450Wh/L.

Significant breakthroughs were made in next-generation battery technologies, specifically in hybrid solid-liquid and solid-state batteries. The 400Wh/kg hybrid solid-liquid battery took the lead in powering new energy commercial vehicles with batch installations. The 450Wh/kg “Boundless” solid-state battery completed its original system prototype verification with industry-leading performance. Meanwhile, the commercialization process in emerging sectors such as low-altitude economy and robotics is accelerating, which is expected to help the Company further expand its global market share. In addition, the Company will continue to be driven by the dual engines of “technological innovation and management innovation,” forging systematic competitiveness for the future by pursuing excellence in both performance and cost management.

“AI + Energy” Strategy: Empowering Industrial Upgrading

Building on technological breakthroughs and guided by the “AI + Energy” strategy, CALB is driven by technological innovation and guided by the “AI + Energy” strategy, adhering to the deep integration of technological innovation and industrial innovation. Propelled by a future-oriented R&D layout, the Company has established a positive feedback loop of “new technology and product development – multi-market application – scaled delivery – refined operations – technological iteration and upgrade”—fully aligning with the current industrial trend of convergence between AI and new energy.

Currently, CALB has established global industrial clusters across China, Europe, and ASEAN, providing a solid foundation for its global business expansion and long-term high-quality development.

As the global energy transition accelerates, global demands are poised for sustained and rapid growth, with emerging application scenarios continuously surfacing. It is anticipated that the Company’s market share and profitability will enter a phase of accelerated expansion, further bolstering its global competitiveness and industry influence.

About CALB

CALB is a new energy enterprise specializing in the research, production, sales, and market application development of lithium batteries, battery management systems, and related integrated products and lithium battery materials. As Battery Expert, we aim to build a comprehensive energy operation system, to provide complete product solutions and full life-cycle management for the new energy application market, represented by power and energy storage.

Currently, CALB has completed an all-round layout in domestic by setting up industrial bases in Changzhou, Xiamen, Wuhan, Chengdu, Hefei, Jiangmen and Meishan. Meanwhile, CALB has set up bases in Europe and ASEAN, vigorously expanding the layout all over the world to become a global leading enterprise with large-scale intelligent manufacturing capabilities.

HONG KONG, Mar 26, 2026 - (ACN Newswire) – CALB (03931.HK) rolled its pioneering 'R46 cylindrical battery' system off the production line at the Chengdu factory on March 25, an aviation power battery set to power the XPENG ARIDGE X3-F Land Aircraft Carrier flying car. 

The recently unveiled R46 cylindrical battery technology boasts an energy density of 360 Wh/kg, the highest-density solid-liquid hybrid cylindrical battery in the industry. It achieves an exceptional balance between high safety, high power density and high energy density, meets aviation-grade safety standards, and will be equipped in several of ARIDGE's flying car models.

The partnership between the two parties began in 2022, with CALB assisting ARIDGE in completing the world’s maiden flight of an electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) flying car. Following rigorous validation, the reliability of CALB’s battery product has been fully verified. Building on this momentum, CALB assembled a team of top researchers to focus on the next-generation advanced R46 cylindrical battery system, tasked with addressing a range of scientific and technological challenges.

Taking the lead in collaborating with leading institutions including ARIDGE, CALB has been awarded support by the National Key R&D Program Project, further positioning the technologies at the forefront of global innovation in intrinsic safety and high-specific-energy aviation power batteries. Consequently, the two parties signed a deepened strategic cooperation agreement in April 2025, establishing an exclusive supply relationship for next-generation models.

From leading the National Key R&D Program focused on advanced R46 cylindrical battery system technology to achieving the mass production of flying car batteries, CALB is accelerating its expansion into forward-looking emerging sectors. The company's commercialization capability across diversified application scenarios continues to strengthen, opening new growth opportunities in the competition for next-generation energy technologies.

CALB Group Co., Ltd. https://en.calb-tech.com/ [03931.HK]