Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene is a kind of thermoplastic engineering plastic with a linear structure and excellent comprehensive properties.

Its development is very rapid, before the 1980s, the world's average annual growth rate of 8.5%, in the 1980s, the growth rate was as high as 15% ~ 20%. But our country's average annual growth rate is above 30%. In 1978, the world consumption was 12,000-12,500 tons, and by 1990, the world demand was about 50,000 tons, of which the United States accounted for 70%. From 2007 to 2009, China gradually became the world's engineering plastics factory, and the development of the supermolecular weight polyethylene industry is very rapid. The following is the development history:

The basic theory of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fiber was first put forward in the 1930s.

The appearance of gel spinning and plasticizing spinning make the ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene make a great breakthrough in technology.

In the 1970s, Capaccio and Ward of the University of Leeds developed the first high molecular weight polyethylene fiber with a molecular weight of 100,000;

In 1964, China successfully developed and put into industrial production;

In 1975, the Netherlands invented the gel spinning method using decalin as a solvent, successfully prepared UHMWPE fiber, and applied for a patent in 1979. After ten years of hard research, it was proved that gel spinning is an effective method to produce high-strength polyethylene fibers and has a bright future in industrialization.

In 1983, ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fiber was produced in Japan by gel extruding super-drawing method with paraffin as a solvent.

In China, ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene pipe in 2001 was listed as the national key scientific and technological achievement in the promotion plan, is a new chemical material, new products.