Shellac flakes is a forest by-product and important industrial raw material with very economic value. Many people regard the transliteration of shellac (LAC) as a vague word representing varnish or gum, and think it may be an acronym or a brand name. In fact, the word (LAC) comes from the Sanskrit word LAKEH, which means one hundred thousand, probably because the resin is made by the laborious secretion of countless insects-lac insects. One pound of shellac needs to be collected from the secretions of 150,000 shellac insects. General resins are mostly plant-based, shellac is the only known animal resin. It is the secretion of lac shellac parasitic on certain plants, mainly composed of shellac resin, shellac wax, shellac pigment, and also contains a small amount of impurities, such as sugar, salt, protein, insect corpses and wood chips Wait. The use of shellac has a long history. Shellac is first used as a medicinal material and secondly as a dye. Both Zhang Bo and Su Gong have records of their use as dyes. “Wu Lu” says that shellac can be used for dyeing flocks (ie silk fabrics); Su Gong said that it can be used for dyeing leather and Baotian. Su Song’s “Book of Sketches” (1061) said that medical prescriptions are rarely used today, but they are needed by dyers. It shows that shellac was used as a dye in the Song Dynasty, which has exceeded medicinal use. About two thousand years ago, it has been used to bond agricultural tools and used as pharmaceutical-intermediates, but the water-soluble shellac pigment is mainly used as scarlet dye and cosmetics. At that time, the processing purpose of shellac was almost to obtain this shellac dye.

The shellac used in ancient my country may have been imported from abroad. As stated in “Wu Lu”, the origin of shellac was Jiuzhen Yifengguo, which is now Thanh Hoa province in central Vietnam. The origins in “Youyang Miscellany” are Zhenla, Persia and Kunlun. In the last years of the Tang Dynasty, Li Chen cited Pei Yuan’s “Guangzhou Zhi” in his “Haiyao Bencao” to point out that it produced Hainan; Su Song said Jiaozhou was also one of the producing areas according to “Jiaozhou Geography”; Li Shizhen said that it produced Nanfan. Although it is mentioned that our country also produces shellac, it may be imported from abroad due to the inconvenience of land transportation and the convenience of sea. “Xu Xiake’s Travel Notes” (Xu Hongzu, 1650) was the first person to make clear that Yunnan Province is the producing area of ​​my country’s lac, and Yunnan Province has been the main producing area of ​​my country’s lac. The shellac produced in Yunnan Province is exported abroad at low prices as raw materials, and accounts for a considerable amount in the international market. By the end of the nineteenth century, natural shellac dyes had plummeted in the international market due to the invention of synthetic aniline dyes.

Due to the invasion in modern times, the production of shellac in our country has gradually stagnated around 1930, and production was completely stopped in 1945, and the seed rubber was almost cut off. After the liberation of the whole country, shellac production gradually resumed after hard work. Nowadays, people have noticed shellac resin in time and found that it has many uses. It is used in varnishes and polishing agents. It is smooth and beautiful, waterproof, moisture-proof, oil-resistant, acid-resistant, and has good insulation properties. It was used in the early electrical industry; during World War II After the war, shellac resin products were widely used in the military industry as coating agents, adhesives and insulating materials for machinery and equipment. Used as a blocker in the gunpowder used in rockets. Magnesium, the main component of the signal bomb, must be coated with a layer of shellac varnish during storage to prevent oxidation. In addition, papaveric acid, a main component of shellac resin, is also one of the raw materials for manufacturing bulletproof glass and anti-ultraviolet, anti-radiation and other military equipment. Therefore, many countries once and now list shellac as a military strategic material. According to statistics, shellac has been used in more than 200 industries such as military, electrical, paint, ink, machinery, rubber, plastics, tanning, papermaking, medicine, food, etc. It is widely used in volatile varnishes, polishing agents, adhesives, and insulation. Materials and raw materials for thermoplastic film. The producing areas of shellac are mostly concentrated in 70°-120° east longitude, 8°-32° north latitude, especially 19°-26° north latitude. The countries that produce shellac in the world, except China, are mainly Vietnam, Burma, Laos, Thailand and India in Southeast Asia and South Asia.

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