Antai Textile: 30 Years of Deep Cultivation Forges Invisible Champion in Colored Acrylic Fiber, Leading Green Textile Future with Technology and Market Insight

In Zhangjiagang in July, the summer heat is gradually intensifying, yet the office building of Antai Textile exudes a focused busyness. Li Xiong, the Marketing Manager, just put down his phone, with the screen still displaying the latest chemical fiber industry weekly report – as of the week ending July 9, the chemical fiber output of enterprises above designated size increased by 5.5% year-on-year. He turned and walked towards the Production Department, where Factory Director Huang was staring at the jumping parameters on the central control screen. The hum of machines in the workshop had a regular rhythm, and rolls of snow-white acrylic fiber sliver were undergoing the dyeing process, transforming into deep navy blue and warm ginger yellow.

"Factory Director Huang, just saw the data – chemical fiber output is up again, and our colored acrylic fiber sliver orders have indeed been bustling recently." Li Xiong handed over a report filled with detailed customer demands from the past two weeks. "The knitting factory in Jiangyin added 200 tons of peacock blue acrylic fiber sliver yesterday, saying they need to rush for autumn children's clothing orders; the wool sweater enterprise in Zhejiang is also asking if we can further improve the color fastness of the existing black acrylic fiber sliver."

Factory Director Huang adjusted his glasses, his fingertips gliding over the raw material consumption curve on the screen: "The raw material market has been restless lately. Shandong Haijiang's 130,000-ton acrylonitrile plant was shut down for 10 days for maintenance. I told Lao Zhou from the Purchasing Department that we need to keep an eye on Jilin Petrochemical's new 260,000-ton plant – once it starts production at the end of the month, the supply of acrylonitrile will increase, and Lihuayi has already lowered its quotation by 50 yuan to 7,900 yuan/ton, which will ease our costs a bit." He paused, pointing to a set of new equipment in the corner of the workshop, "Look, the continuous dyeing unit that was just commissioned last month now saves 15 kWh of electricity per ton of colored acrylic fiber sliver, and the dye utilization rate has increased from 85% to 92%. We have confidence in dealing with such raw material fluctuations."

This kind of dialogue between market and production has long been a norm in Antai Textile's 30-year history. Since taking root in Zhangjiagang in 1993, this enterprise, which started with acrylic yarn, has now grown into the invisible champion in China's colored acrylic fiber sector – with an annual production capacity of over 8,000 tons of acrylic sliver production lines, an industry-leading fancy yarn R&D center, and cooperative clients covering over half of high-end knitting and home textile enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta. What underpins this confidence is precisely the accurate grasp of the industry's pulse.

"Did you notice the patent authorization for dope-dyed acrylic black fiber by Hebei Aikerui last month?" Li Xiong pulled up the news on his phone, "In recent years, the trend of 'green textiles' has been growing stronger, and downstream brands are all focusing on 'zero-water printing and dyeing'. Our colored acrylic fiber sliver follows the dope dyeing route – color masterbatch is injected during the acrylonitrile polymerization stage, eliminating the subsequent dyeing process. This not only achieves a color fastness of grade 4 or higher (1 grade higher than the industry average), but also saves 80 tons of water and reduces COD emissions by 60% per ton." He recalled the Guangdong client he received last week, who repeatedly rubbed the fabric sample: "The sweater woven from your ginger yellow acrylic fiber sliver hardly fades after ten washes, much better than the dyed yarn we used before."

Such recognition stems from Antai Textile's dedication to technology. Factory Director Huang remembers that when the team first attempted dope dyeing in 2018, they stayed in the laboratory for three months, and just the debugging parameters – from color masterbatch ratio to spinning temperature – filled 12 notebooks. "Back then, the market thought 'colored acrylic fiber is just dyed', but we bet on the future – and now it seems we took the right path." Today, the company's colored acrylic fiber sliver covers 120 regular color numbers and can also customize special colors according to customer needs; last year, custom color orders alone accounted for 35% of the total.

In the raw material warehouse, several rows of storage tanks are neatly arranged, and the electronic screen displays the real-time acrylonitrile inventory: 12,500 tons. "This is the 'production and supply guarantee agreement' we signed with Jilin Petrochemical. Once the new plant starts up, raw materials can be supplied directly, which is 3% lower than the market price, not to mention avoiding supply disruptions due to unexpected situations like Shandong Haijiang's maintenance," Factory Director Huang explained. "For 30 years, from the initial few old spinning machines to today's fully automated workshop, Antai has been able to gain a firm foothold in the acrylic fiber industry by relying on 'upstream and downstream working as one' – upstream monitoring raw material fluctuations, midstream focusing on process optimization, and downstream following market demand."

Outside the window, a truck fully loaded with acrylic yarn slowly drove out of the factory, with the words "Antai Textile" on the body particularly clear in the sunlight. Li Xiong looked at the growing order data on the report and recalled the scene when his father took the first batch of samples to an exhibition in Shanghai when the company was just founded in 1993. From a "local small factory in Zhangjiagang" to a "colored acrylic fiber benchmark in the Yangtze River Delta", Antai has proven over 30 years that in the traditional textile industry, the so-called "trend" has always been reserved for those willing to calm down and refine products, and understand the market. And Antai's story continues – in the colors of every roll of acrylic fiber sliver, in the calm response to every raw material fluctuation, and even more so, in weaving the future of green textiles together with thousands of textile people.