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The explosive growth of carbon fiber
Release date: [2018/6/1] Read total of [755] times

First, carbon fiber profile

Carbon fiber (abbreviated as CF) is a new type of fiber material containing high-strength and high-modulus fibers with a carbon content of 95% or more. The microstructure of carbon fiber is similar to that of artificial graphite. It is a layered graphite structure and exhibits high strength along the fiber axis. Carbon fiber has the characteristics of high strength, light weight, etc. It is an excellent mechanical property and has many special functions. Due to the excellent comprehensive performance and high added value of carbon fiber and its composite materials, it is known as the "black gold" of the 21st century and is listed in the national "13th Five-Year Plan" as a strategic emerging industry that the country focuses on its development.

There is a big gap between China's carbon fiber industry development and foreign countries, whether it is the production of carbon fiber and its downstream applications. Taking carbon fiber as an example, in 2017, the global theoretical production capacity of carbon fiber was 147,100 tons, while in China, it was 2,6000 tons. The gap is larger, but the difference in actual production is even more pronounced. In 2016, the global carbon fiber production is about 84,000 tons, which is about 60% of the production capacity, but China's actual output is 7400 tons (say 5,400) and less than 30% of the production capacity (China's carbon fiber demand is about 24,800 tons in 2017, and self-sufficiency rate is 30% ). At the same time, such as foreign Toray can mass production of T300, T700, T800, T1000, M40, M55, M60 and other levels of carbon fiber, and domestic T300, T700 can meet certain needs, other levels of products in the market has not yet formed a large-scale supply.

At the same time, there is still a big gap in the application of carbon fiber. Take the case of a large amount of carbon fiber as an example:

However, domestic applications are mostly sporting goods, wind power, building reinforcement, and pressure vessels, which are at the relatively low end of the application. The most typical example is sporting goods, with 13,200 tons in the world. The amount in mainland China and Taiwan is almost the same. The total amount is 12,000 tons, nearly 90% of the global amount. However, in the brand of carbon fiber sports and leisure samples, few companies can find out. Shot brand. The most rapidly increasing volume of wind power and gas cylinders in the past few years is mainly to provide products for foreign manufacturers. Take wind power as an example. Although domestic enterprises have seen rapid growth in carbon fiber composite materials this year, they are all provided for Vestas. Vestas faced a business crisis several years ago and almost sold it to Chinese companies. However, they insisted on the beginning of technology, innovated the application design of carbon fiber in wind power, changed the traditional prepreg and carbon cloth process, and used pultrusion plates to make blades. The girder technology, when it achieved a breakthrough, soon became the world's leading wind power.

Second, the development and application of carbon fiber and composite materials will usher in explosive growth

Carbon fiber composite material (CFRP) is a “large and advanced advanced basic material” and “key strategic material that restricts the development of manufacturing” that must be addressed in the “Made in China 2025” development plan deployed by the State Council's government work report. The industrial chain is extremely important for restructuring China's industrial system. In many fields such as aerospace, rail transit, ship vehicles, bridge construction, power tools, sports equipment, wind turbines, and computers, communications, and consumer electronics, 3C information appliances Great attention has been exerted on the development and growth of the national economy. Carbon fiber is the crown of the moment, is the country's advanced qualitative and strategic materials!

However, carbon fiber itself is a structural material. This feature is similar to steel. Carbon fiber is used regardless of whether it is flying in the sky, running on the ground, in water, or in all walks of life. Therefore, as the cost of carbon fiber decreases, and With the further development of the application level, the carbon fiber will once again be swallowed by Wang Xietang and flew into the homes of ordinary people, welcoming the explosive growth of its application.

The pattern of carbon fiber in the world is still dominated by Japan, in particular, small tow occupies a large advantage, and the European and American large tow has a stronger ability. In order to make up for the lack of large tow, Toray acquired Zoltek for $584 million. Because of the special nature of carbon fiber, China must rely mainly on its own strength to develop. In this process, private enterprises such as Guangwei, Shenying and Hengshen have taken on the responsibility of nationalities and have achieved the key to the development of China's carbon fiber industry. The sexual breakthrough has made a key contribution! At present, China's carbon fiber companies already have some place in the world's carbon fiber industry map (the figure above is lined with China's). The most representative of these is the Zhongfu Condor (ie CCGC). Its annual production and sales volume is stable at over 1,000 tons. Product quality has received market inspection and customer approval. In 2017, the production and sales reached 2,500 tons, accounting for more than half of domestic carbon fiber sales. . The most important thing is that many of their key tonnages are made by themselves. Of course, there are also imitations and independent research and development, so the equipment cost of their production line is controllable. If the market is suitable, at the most basic level, they can easily replicate multiple kiloton-class production lines and achieve a breakthrough of 10,000 tons (so local leaders have only announced that they will start the 5-10 million tons of carbon fiber production base at the right time).

Of course, the development of the carbon fiber industry also needs application-side support. At present, domestic carbon fiber applications have formed several clusters. Among them, Shandong, Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Fujian (Shanghai is a port, and imports need to take this, and its own application is not much), Guangdong and Fujian took over the transfer of many Taiwanese companies in the early years, with strong product processing capacity, but focused on Sporting goods have a high degree of repetition. The entire industrial chain of carbon fiber in Shandong and Jiangsu is relatively good. From the upstream petrochemical products to the carbon fiber production, to the downstream applications, the entire industrial ecological chain is relatively complete, and there is an opportunity to develop it first.