In the coastal industrial zone of Zhanhua District, Binzhou City, Shandong Province, stands Shandong Damin Chemical Co., Ltd., a company that has rewritten the rules of a highly specialized corner of the chemical industry. At its helm is Chen Guojian, a Zhejiang-born entrepreneur who left a secure career in Hangzhou to plant roots in northern China. Over nearly two decades, he has transformed a modest startup into the world’s dominant producer of 1,2-propanediamine and the only company globally to control a complete green industrial chain from propylene oxide to isopropanolamine to 1,2-propanediamine.
Chen’s journey began in 2007. After years working for a listed chemical enterprise in Hangzhou, he chose to leave the familiar Zhejiang business environment and relocate to Zhanhua. In July 2008, Shandong Damin Chemical was formally established. The early days were modest: annual sales hovered around just over 10 million yuan. What set the venture apart was Chen’s immediate emphasis on research and development. “Unlike most enterprises that settled in Zhanhua at the time,” he later recalled, “I started by building a R&D team. Rooted in science, a research team will eventually usher in an industrial boom.”
That bet paid off almost immediately. In 2008, Chen led the development of a new gas-solid catalytic amination process for synthesizing 1,2-propanediamine that reached international advanced standards. The breakthrough shattered the long-standing technical monopoly held by Germany’s BASF. The same year, the company applied its proprietary technology to build and commission China’s first 3,000-ton-per-year 1,2-propanediamine production unit, solving a critical “chokepoint” problem for the domestic spandex industry’s chain extenders.
The technical edge was reinforced by geography and vertical integration. Drawing on locally available propylene oxide from Zhonghai Fine Chemical through direct pipeline supply, Damin constructed the world’s only complete green industrial chain linking propylene oxide, isopropanolamine, and 1,2-propanediamine. The arrangement sharply reduced costs and secured raw-material supply. Continuous innovation followed. From 2019 onward, under Chen’s leadership, the company secured 26 invention and utility model patents and successfully commercialized its propylene amine synthesis process. Capacity expanded: a 6,000-ton-per-year propanediamine technical-upgrade project came on stream in 2019, helping push domestic market share above 95 percent and international share beyond 80 percent. By 2024, the company’s 1,2-propanediamine held more than 86.71 percent of the global market and over 97 percent of the Chinese market—ranking first worldwide. A 30,000-ton isopropanolamine project completed in 2022 further captured roughly half of the domestic isopropanolamine market.
Growth was never purely technical. Winning customer trust required patience and concrete guarantees. In the early years, Western multinationals showed little faith in a product from a fledgling Chinese company. Chen’s team responded with third-party test reports from a Swiss laboratory showing higher purity than imported alternatives, full compensation pledges for any trial failures, two-day delivery guarantees, and tailored technical support matched to each customer’s formulation. One Yantai client alone required more than ten visits over two years—conversations spanning procurement, technical, production, and even end-user sales teams—before the relationship was secured. “We wanted customers to have confidence in the domestic product and use it boldly,” Chen explained.
International expansion followed the same philosophy of persistence. Chen articulates a three-stage outbound strategy: “go out” from the domestic market to the global one; “go in” by taking root, consolidating territory, and expanding through a broader product portfolio; and “go up” by steadily elevating technology content, brand strength, and service quality to build an international brand. He remains clear-eyed about the competitive landscape: “The current international market is a red sea—global economic headwinds, shrinking demand, overcapacity, homogenization, and rising trade protectionism. Yet we can rely on technological innovation and high-quality development, strengthen our confidence, enhance product and brand advantages, and open up our own blue ocean.”
That focus has been deliberate. “This is the power of concentration,” Chen has said. The company’s entire product architecture remains centered on specialty amines—a field marked by high technical barriers, difficult R&D, and complex processes. The portfolio now spans four series and more than twenty varieties (with plans to exceed thirty). From a single product and annual sales of roughly 10 million yuan, Damin has grown into a mid-sized enterprise with sales approaching 400 million yuan in earlier reports and 253 million yuan in 2024, alongside rising profits and tax contributions.
Capital markets have accelerated the trajectory. On December 22, 2020, Damin Chemical listed on the National Equities Exchange and Quotations (NEEQ), trading under the short name “Damin Shares” with stock code 873559. Chen assumed the chairmanship in March 2023. The company aims to list on the Beijing Stock Exchange around 2026 or 2027 (some statements target 2027 or earlier transfer to the STAR Market), raise funds for a 70,000-ton advanced amine provincial key project, and expand specialty-amine capacity to 150,000 tons by 2025 with more than thirty varieties. The longer-term vision is clear: become the leading enterprise in China’s specialty-amine new-materials sector with a market capitalization of 10 billion yuan, and ultimately a global leader with annual sales reaching 3 billion yuan.
Recognition has followed. Damin is a national-level specialized and sophisticated “Little Giant” enterprise, a Shandong manufacturing single champion, a national high-tech enterprise, and holder of numerous provincial and municipal science-and-technology awards. Chen himself has received the Binzhou May 1st Labor Medal (2021), the Binzhou Outstanding Entrepreneur Bronze Lion Award (2021 and 2024), the Binzhou Science and Technology Progress First Prize (2022), the Shandong Chemical and Chemical Engineering Society Science and Technology First Prize (2023), and the Zhanhua District Science and Technology Entrepreneur title (2025), among others. Earlier in his career he enjoyed a Hangzhou municipal special allowance, participated in a national Torch Program project, and won a Zhejiang Science and Technology Progress Second Prize.
Eighteen years after choosing Zhanhua, Chen Guojian embodies a classic yet still rare trajectory in Chinese private manufacturing: an outsider who arrived with technical ambition, broke a foreign monopoly through original process innovation, constructed a unique industrial chain, earned market trust through relentless service, and is now steering the enterprise toward capital-market maturity and global leadership—all while remaining tightly focused on the demanding specialty-amine domain. In his own words, the path forward rests on continuous R&D, strategic concentration, and the quiet confidence that comes from building something no one else possesses.