Three major trends in carbon fiber development in 2017

Carbon fiber (carbon fiber) due to high strength, high modulus, lightweight performance, not only has an irreplaceable position in the field of aerospace and other military, civilian also shine in the field of sports and leisure goods, building protection, automobile transportation, Known as the black gold in the material world.

Heavy policy support

" Made in China 2025"

In May 2015, the State Council officially released "Made in China 2025", which made an overall deployment of China's manufacturing transformation and upgrading and leapfrog development, and clarified the strategic tasks and priorities for building and manufacturing a strong country. Choose 10 major advantages and strategic industries as breakthrough points, and strive to reach international leading position or international advanced level by 2025.

" 13th Five-Year National Strategic Emerging Industry Development Plan"

In December 2016, the State Council issued the "13th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Strategic Emerging Industries" (hereinafter referred to as "Planning"), and the development goals, key tasks, and policy measures for China's strategic emerging industries during the 13th Five-Year Plan period. Make a comprehensive deployment arrangement.

Development status

Carbon fibers are classified into PAN-based carbon fibers, viscose -based carbon fibers, and pitch-based carbon fibers. At present, the global carbon fiber industrial products are mainly PAN-based carbon fibers, accounting for more than 90% of the total global carbon fiber production.

From a business perspective, the current global carbon fiber manufacturing leaders are Japan Toray, Toho, Mitsubishi Rayon, the United States HEXCEL and CYTEC companies and the German SGL company, the carbon fiber industry is highly concentrated. There are more than 30 carbon fiber companies in China.

From a product point of view, Japan Toray revealed that it is studying T2000 grade carbon fiber, the strength can reach 60GPa, which is ten times the strength of T1000 grade carbon fiber. The T2000 carbon fiber is not suitable for the initiator in the polymerization process, and the polymerization is initiated by irradiation, which can avoid the incorporation of impurities, and this has hardly been studied in China. Japan's Toray is currently able to reduce the carbon fiber CV value to 0.1, while our domestic carbon fiber CV value is around 5.

The domestic T300 series can basically reach the international level, the military application field is relatively mature, and the civilian market is gradually developing. T700 grade high-performance carbon fiber breaks through the dry-jet wet-spinning process, and industrial production and application are gradually accelerated. T800 grade carbon fiber has been trial-produced in small batches, but it has not yet fully realized industrialization. MJ series of high performance carbon fiber has broken through key preparation technologies.

From a market perspective, the international carbon fiber market is still dominated by Japan and the United States.

According to relevant data, in the small tow carbon fiber market, Japanese companies account for 49% of global production capacity; in the large tow carbon fiber market, Japan and the United States together have 76% of global large tow carbon fiber Production capacity is in a clear dominant position. As China's investment in carbon fiber continues to increase, China's carbon fiber production share continues to increase.

According to Chris of Composiites, global carbon fiber will increase significantly in the industrial market over the next five years.

In 2015, the domestic demand for carbon fiber was 15,000 tons. Among them, foreign companies accounted for about 80% of the market, and the self-sufficiency rate of domestic carbon fiber was only about 20%.

Trend 1: Carbon fiber products develop in the direction of stability and high-end

Although there are 3-4 domestic carbon fiber production enterprises with design capacity above 1,000 tons, but lack of core technical team, the stability of production process and process control are poor, and the quality and stability of carbon fiber products cannot be guaranteed. Very high. Therefore, it is an inevitable trend to achieve stable production of products and improve equipment utilization.

According to statistics, at present, domestic carbon fiber accounts for only 4% of high-end applications in the three fields of aerospace, sports and leisure and industrial applications. It is necessary to devote pains to research, achieve technological breakthroughs, form a systematic and serialized carbon fiber industry chain development model, and break the monopoly of foreign high-end fields.

Trend 2: Seeking new market segments

At present, the high-end application field of carbon fiber is monopolized by developed countries such as Japan and the United States. Most of China's carbon fiber enterprise products are in the low-end field. For low-end applications such as sports and leisure, industry giants are likely to form synergies in price setting and research and research, and suppress domestic carbon fiber companies.

Therefore, China's carbon fiber industry urgently needs to seek new market areas and achieve breakthrough development.

Trend 3: Enterprise transformation and mergers and acquisitions, layout of the complete industrial chain

The carbon fiber industry is a highly intensive technology and capital industry. It requires huge investment internally and is facing the pressure of international giants. Therefore, it is inevitable to face transformation, and integrate resources through mergers and acquisitions to form a large-scale carbon fiber production enterprise and participate in international competition.

Among the related products of the carbon fiber industry chain, the value of the product is greatly increased from the raw silk to the carbon fiber to the composite material and the subsequent application design of the composite material. Through a systematic and serialized entire industrial chain, carbon fiber companies can reduce costs, increase profitability, and be able to face the competition of international giants and reverse the dilemma.

summary

As a very high-end new chemical material , carbon fiber involves many very fine process conditions and preparation details, making it difficult to make a huge breakthrough in a short period of time. Although China's carbon fiber industry is still far behind the world's advanced level, it is believed that by strengthening independent innovation and research and development, seizing opportunities and striving for development, China's carbon fiber industry will surely get rid of repression and arrogance.