To illustrate the challenge, consider purifying industrial sulfuric acid equivalent to the volume of Xuanwu Lake into electronic-grade acid, where the allowable impurity cannot exceed a single drop of water, explains Li Yao, an associate researcher at the Nanjing Chemical Research Institute. While this may sound exaggerated, it precisely captures the daunting task the company must overcome to develop electronic chemicals and a goal the research team has pursued for years.
This year, Nanjing Chemical Industry Company (NIC), a factory celebrating its 90th anniversary, has assembled a team of post-90s researchers to develop electronic chemicals, enabling the enterprise to embed itself into the integrated circuit industry chain. As the cradle of China's national chemical industry, industrial sulfuric acid was once the company's flagship product. In 1936, the Yongli Ammonia Plant completed its sulfuric acid facility, producing the nation's first batch of sulfuric acid the following year. By 1988, NIC had built the country's largest pyrite-based acid production system at the time. Starting in 2002, the company successively upgraded three sulfur-burning acid plants, eventually phasing out the older pyrite technology.
Now, this 90-year-old sulfuric acid facility, with an annual capacity of 500,000 tons, has undergone a comprehensive upgrade and is being repurposed to produce electronic-grade sulfuric acid, with an annual output of 20,000 tons. Electronic-grade sulfuric acid, also known as high-purity or ultrapure sulfuric acid, falls under the category of super-clean, high-purity reagents. During chip manufacturing, it acts as a "cleaner" for semiconductors, effectively removing grease, particulate contaminants, and other impurities attached to the wafer surface.
Although China is a major producer of sulfuric acid, the country still relies heavily on foreign suppliers for electronic-grade variants. Globally, key players include Germany's BASF, Japan's Mitsubishi Chemical, and the US-based Avantor. Domestically, only a handful of companies can manufacture it, and their production scales are typically small with unstable yields. This electronic-grade sulfuric acid project marks a pivotal transformation for NIC and represents the first major challenge for Li Yao since joining the institute after earning his PhD in chemical engineering from Peking University.
Li Yao's team includes Xiong Jian, specializing in organic chemistry, and Qin Yi, focused on new materials. For these young researchers, electronic-grade sulfuric acid is entirely new territory. Like Li Yao, all team members are post-90s master's and doctoral graduates. When selecting technical talent, NIC deliberately prioritized young, outstanding individuals. Rather than clinging to traditional large-scale chemical industry thinking, the team was urged to keep their mindset aligned with the artificial intelligence era. After accepting the assignment, the electronic chemicals team conducted multiple visits to industry leaders such as TSMC, ChangXin Memory, and SMIC, and attended the China International Semiconductor Expo to stay abreast of frontier developments and gather detailed product validation procedures and data.
In both domestic and international production processes for electronic-grade sulfuric acid, purification technology remains the critical bottleneck. It imposes stringent requirements on processing equipment, materials, containers, and the surrounding environment, all of which drive up costs. In the laboratory, standards are almost obsessively strict. All R&D and operations personnel undergo closed-door, intensive training. Perfume use and casual coughing are prohibited in cleanrooms. Even microscopic fiber shreds or skin particles can become contamination sources. Every transfer pipeline has been replaced with corrosion-resistant, high-purity lining materials. Before equipment commissioning, multiple full-scale flushing cycles are performed to eliminate any dead corners.
Li Yao jokes that the electronic-grade sulfuric acid used for chip production is billions of times cleaner than everyday drinking water, comparing their work to "medical aesthetics," where not a speck of dust can be tolerated. With artificial intelligence driving surging demand for computing power, more robust hardware becomes essential. Thus, NIC's electronic-grade sulfuric acid project is not merely a product upgrade but a critical offensive in securing a vital segment of the supply chain. Li Yao and his team fully recognize that high-purity electronic chemicals are indispensable in this intense technological race. One major reason for launching this project is its strong alignment with the local industrial direction. The team is persistently tackling challenges to achieve rapid quality improvements.
Li Yao notes that the Nanjing Jiangbei New Area hosts numerous integrated circuit and display panel enterprises. NIC can conveniently connect with local wafer fab testing needs, optimize products accordingly, shorten validation cycles, and actively participate in the region's integrated circuit supply chain, boosting the industry's growth. As the 20,000-ton annual capacity electronic-grade sulfuric acid transitions from blueprints to reality, this electronic chemicals team, much like the chemical pioneers of the past, is carving a contemporary imprint on China's chemical map for the youth of Jiangbei. Looking ahead, the team will expand experiments into other electronic chemicals, including electronic-grade nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, and ammonia water, solidifying "precision" as the defining characteristic of both NIC and the chemical sector in the Jiangbei New Area.
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