Material Handling Systems | Integrated conveying, batching, and dosing for powders, pellets, and flakes

The challenge in process industries

In new energy, petrochemical, and chemical processing, projects often run into trouble after equipment is installed. Complex materials — irregular pellets, dust-laden and iron-contaminated flakes, agglomerating powders, floating silica — can block conveying lines and disrupt the entire process. Few suppliers can meet the standards required by leading customers.

SOPHON (智子智能) focuses on solving these problems. The company provides integrated solutions for new energy, new materials, chemical and plastics, food and pharma, semiconductors, and petrochemicals.

Integrated project delivery

SOPHON handles the full project cycle: material property analysis, process design, civil and utility coordination, 3D modeling review, BIM construction simulation, project execution, digital twin integration, and lifecycle management. Customers include CATL, SVOLT, HiTHIUM, Sinopec, Wanhua Chemical, Rongsheng Petrochemical, and Zhejiang Petroleum & Chemical.

In some projects, the company reports production efficiency gains of 20%20% labor cost reductions of 20%20%, and lines requiring only 1-2 operators per shift.

Case: Sinopec waste plastics pyrolysis project

In 2023, Sinopec launched a waste plastics pyrolysis industrial demonstration project to convert waste plastics into fuel oil, carbon black, and combustible gas. Crushed waste plastics are irregular, dust-laden, and iron-contaminated. Conventional conveying easily blocks and risks fire or explosion. Material handling became the bottleneck.

Sinopec's team identified SOPHON through cross-recommendations from engineering firms and suppliers. SOPHON built a simulation platform in its laboratory, testing variables including air speed, pipe diameter, and elbow radius, accumulating hundreds of data sets in weeks. Through weekly online meetings and biweekly design iterations, the two teams selected core equipment and layout. For Sinopec's continuous deoxygenation requirement, they jointly developed online continuous deoxygenation technology, applied to the core explosion-proof deoxygenation buffer tank.

Detailed design used P3D 3D modeling and BIM collision testing to eliminate construction risks in advance. The final design included explosion-proof and explosion-vent dual protection, dual backup power sources, and drawer-type automatic iron removal. Metering precision was controlled within 0.3%. The system ran successfully on first feed and operated stably.

About the exhibitor

SOPHON was founded in 2016 and provides integrated material handling solutions for new energy, new materials, chemical and plastics, food and pharma, semiconductors, and petrochemicals. It employs over 400 people, with 65% in engineering and R&D, and has filed over 240 patents and qualifications.

Booth: C1E23

At-a-glance

SOPHON | Material Handling Systems | Integrated conveying, batching, and dosing for powders, pellets, and flakes

SOPHON: Precision Material Handling for Processing Industries and Chemical Recycling