At the Tonghui Gas parking lot in Tongnan High-Tech Zone (North District), over a dozen specialized tank vehicles are neatly lined up. Outside, under the guidance of security personnel, a hazardous materials vehicle slowly drives into the facility.
“The cylinders being filled contain food-grade carbon dioxide, ordered by Coca-Cola. Once loading is complete, they’ll be shipped to production facilities across the country,” explained an employee from the Chongqing Tonghui Gas Co., Ltd. R&D Center.
Why is Carbon Dioxide Essential for Beverages Like Soda?
Carbon dioxide plays a crucial role in soft drinks. It reduces temperature, creates acidity in the beverage, enhances its unique flavor, and inhibits microbial growth, extending the product’s shelf life. With China’s strong market demand for soda, ensuring a steady supply of food-grade carbon dioxide as a key raw material is critically important.
Over years of rapid development, Tonghui Gas has become one of China’s leading suppliers of food-grade carbon dioxide, consistently providing for renowned domestic and international beverage brands.
Talent-Fueled Innovation: The Foundation of Progress
Innovation is the primary driving force of development. In the specialty gas industry, achieving stable growth and avoiding dependence on others requires the power of technological innovation.
Understanding this, Tonghui Gas has significantly increased its investment in research and development over the years. To date, the company operates two high-tech enterprises and six R&D centers. It holds 27 national patents and has developed nine high-tech products.
Thanks to its strong technical team and continuous innovation, Tonghui Gas has successfully developed a range of products, including electronic-grade nitrous oxide, high-purity germane, electronic gases, and ultra-high-purity gases. The company is also advancing research on electronic-grade high-purity arsine, phosphine, and silane, along with supporting advanced electronic mixed gases and precision standard gases, which serve industries such as electronics, semiconductors, optoelectronics, chemicals, and machinery.
Tonghui invests approximately 6% of its annual revenue in R&D, with an annual expenditure exceeding 20 million yuan. This investment supports not only product development but also the recruitment and incentivization of scientific talent.
The company’s robust innovation mechanisms have cemented its leadership in the specialty gas industry. Zhong Lidong, a distinguished recruit, shared, “Moving from the coast to the inland, I was drawn by the company’s supportive culture and the platform it provides. The comprehensive arrangements for housing, transportation, and other living needs have fully addressed our concerns.”
Company leader Huang Jiadou expressed his vision: “I hope to attract more talent, create favorable conditions for them, and support the development of high-tech, competitive products. This is essential to breaking foreign monopolies in the electronic-grade specialty gas sector. To survive and thrive amidst international market complexities and intense domestic competition, we must unwaveringly rely on talent and intensify R&D efforts.”
Aiming High: Tackling “Chokepoint” Technologies
Historically, over 90% of the global specialty gas market has been dominated by Europe and the United States, both in production scale and regional distribution.
Electronic specialty gases, which require extremely high purity, originated in the West and come with significant technical barriers. As China becomes the world’s largest semiconductor market, demand for electronic specialty gases has surged. Given the high cost of imports, domestic production has become imperative.
In the field of electronic specialty gases required for integrated circuit production, China can only produce 20% of the necessary types, relying heavily on imports for the rest. Against this backdrop, Tonghui Gas has dedicated years to R&D and production, establishing itself as the largest high-tech enterprise specializing in specialty gases in the Sichuan-Chongqing region.
As China’s manufacturing sector seeks to upgrade and move toward higher-end industries, Tonghui Gas has achieved an annual production capacity of 1.1 million tons of liquid carbon dioxide and 30,000 cylinders of high-purity, electronic-grade, standard, and mixed specialty gases. The company also produces 30,000 tons each of electronic-grade nitrous oxide (N2O) and dry ice, with daily cryogenic liquid CO2 storage capacity reaching 10,000 tons. Tonghui’s production capabilities rank as the largest in Western China and among the leaders nationwide.
Striving for high-end advancement and contributing to the high-quality development of China’s industrial sector has always been Tonghui’s mission.
“Our past achievements are just the beginning,” said Huang Jiadou. “Our team is focused on developing electronic materials like GeF4, ClF3, and HfCl4, which are currently produced only by the U.S. and Japan. We aim to provide the technical foundation for domestic production and eliminate dependence on foreign technologies. Moving forward, we will implement a strategic product upgrade, optimize our product structure, and increase the proportion of high-tech products to better serve our customers and contribute to China’s economic growth.”
