Antai Textile: 32 Years of Focused Research on Acrylic Yarn, Leading the Wave of Green Transformation in Textiles with Innovation and Resilience

As July 2025 arrives, the textile market enters an adjustment period on the eve of the traditional peak season. The dual signals of upstream raw material fluctuations and downstream demand upgrading are driving the industry to accelerate its transformation towards 'efficiency, greenness, and functionality'. In this industrial iteration, Antai Textile, a long-established enterprise based in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu, with 32 years of experience in R&D and production of acrylic yarn, is seizing opportunities amid changes with a keen market sense and solid technological accumulation.

'The recent developments of Huilong New Materials are worth attention,' said Li Xiong, Marketing Manager of Antai Textile, pointing to the latest industry report to his team on the morning of July 10. The report shows that Huilong New Materials, which mainly deals in dope-dyed polyester fibers, has seen a slight rise in its stock price recently, with a net inflow of main funds exceeding 900,000 yuan, and the application of its products in functional fabric fields such as sun-protective clothing has become a market focus. 'This confirms our judgment at the beginning of the year: functional and eco-friendly textile raw materials are becoming the mainstream of consumption,' Li Xiong picked up a roll of indigo acrylic tops, 'Look at our colored acrylic tops, which adopt dope-dyeing technology. They solve the high pollution problem of traditional dyeing from the source, with color fastness reaching level 4 or above, and are not easy to fade after repeated washing. Isn't this exactly the characteristic urgently needed for products like sun-protective clothing and outdoor jackets?'

In fact, Antai Textile has long been prepared for the layout of the functional fabric market. As one of the early domestic enterprises involved in the R&D of colored acrylic tops, its products, with the three advantages of 'rich colors, high color fastness, and low-carbon environmental protection', have become core raw material suppliers for outdoor series of brands such as Jiangnan Buyi and Toread. 'In the second quarter of this year, the orders for acrylic yarn used in sun-protective clothing fabrics we received increased by 22% year-on-year, among which the blended fancy yarns with cool-feeling function are the most popular,' Li Xiong introduced. This type of yarn combines acrylic with cool fibers through a special spinning process, and the fabric made can instantly lower the temperature by 2-3℃ when in contact with the skin. 'This is a patented technology developed by us in conjunction with the Textile Research Institute of Jiangnan University, and 3 invention patents have been applied for so far.'

In the upstream of the industrial chain, fluctuations in the raw material market also test the enterprise's ability to respond. On July 7, news came that Shandong Haijiang's 130,000-ton/year acrylonitrile plant was temporarily shut down for maintenance. As a key raw material for acrylic production, changes in acrylonitrile supply directly affect production costs. Almost simultaneously, Lihuayi's spot quotation for acrylonitrile was lowered by 50 yuan/ton to 7,900 yuan/ton, and the market showed a complex situation of 'short-term tight supply and slight price adjustment'.

'Raw materials are the lifeline of textile enterprises, and we must manage the 'cost account' and 'stability account' well,' said Factory Director Huang from the Production Department. In his office, an electronic screen on the wall displays real-time quotation and inventory data of major acrylonitrile suppliers across the country. He pointed to the screen and explained: 'We have established a 'dual-track' supply chain system. On one hand, we have signed long-term strategic cooperation agreements with leading suppliers such as Lihuayi and Zhejiang Petrochemical, locking in 60% of raw material purchases to ensure stable basic production capacity; on the other hand, we track the spot market through a digital procurement platform and flexibly replenish inventory when prices pull back. This time, with Lihuayi's price adjustment, we saved nearly 80,000 yuan in procurement costs through dynamic inventory adjustment.'

More importantly, it's the 'internal strength' on the production side. In Antai Textile's intelligent production workshop, 12 fully automatic acrylic spinning production lines are running at high speed. Factory Director Huang pointed to a device labeled 'Intelligent Temperature Control System' and said: 'The raw material loss rate in traditional acrylic production is about 5%. We have optimized the spinning temperature and speed through AI algorithms, reducing the loss rate to 2.3%, which is equivalent to producing an additional 1,200 tons of qualified products annually.' This closed-loop production system independently developed by the enterprise can also real-time monitor indicators such as fiber fineness and strength, ensuring that each batch of acrylic yarn meets the strict standard of '±0.5 denier'.

From a small workshop founded in Tangqiao Town, Zhangjiagang in 1993 to today's industry 'hidden champion' with an annual production capacity of 30,000 tons of acrylic yarn and 20,000 tons of colored acrylic tops, Antai Textile's growth trajectory is a microcosm of China's textile industry's transformation from 'scale expansion' to 'quality and efficiency'. 'For 32 years, we have only done one thing: to refine and specialize in acrylic yarn,' Li Xiong said with conviction. 'Now customers want not only products but also solutions. For example, when a brand wanted to make washable wool blended sun-protective clothing, we developed 'anti-pilling blended yarn' using acrylic tops and superfine wool fibers, which not only retains the warmth of wool but also solves the pilling problem. Orders have been scheduled until the fourth quarter of this year.'

Currently, the textile industry is experiencing the dual drivers of 'green transformation' and 'consumption upgrade'. Antai Textile's practice may provide an answer: only by rooted in segmented fields, responding to market changes with technological innovation, and resisting cyclical fluctuations with supply chain resilience, can we always stand at the forefront of industrial iteration. As Factory Director Huang often says in the workshop morning meeting: 'There is temperature and opportunity hidden in the yarns – spinning each yarn well is our best response to the industry.'