Domestic Large Tow Carbon Fiber Is About To Be Mass Produced, Breaking The Monopoly Of The United States And Japan

On January 4, one of the major industrial projects in Shanghai in 2021, the "24000 T / a precursor fiber and 12000 T / a 48K large tow carbon fiber" project of Shanghai Petrochemical Company was officially started. It is reported that the total investment of the project is expected to reach 3.5 billion yuan, and it is planned to be completed in 2024.

It is pointed out that after the project is put into operation, not only can Sinopec become the first enterprise in China to break through 48K large tow carbon fiber industrialization technology, but also can change the current situation that China's large tow carbon fiber depends on import and the long-term shortage of supply, and boost the development of domestic carbon fiber industry.

9 times harder than steel! "Black gold" demand rose to 42200 tons

It should be noted that in the field of carbon fiber, the carbon fiber bundle with more than 48000 roots (48K for short) is usually called large tow carbon fiber, and the carbon fiber bundle between 1000 and 12000 is called small tow. Large tow is generally used in textile, mechanical and electrical, civil construction, transportation, energy and other fields, so it is also known as industrial carbon fiber; small tow is used in aerospace, high-end sports and leisure products and other fields, known as aerospace carbon fiber.

As an industrial grade carbon fiber, large tow has excellent mechanical properties. Its weight is less than a quarter of that of steel, but its strength is 7 to 9 times that of steel. In addition, it also has the characteristics of corrosion resistance and high modulus. Therefore, it is also known as "the king of new materials" and "black gold", and has a wide application prospect in all walks of life.

Compared with small tow, the biggest advantage of 48K large tow is that it can greatly improve the productivity and quality performance of carbon fiber single strand under the same production conditions, so as to realize low cost production and break the application limitation brought by high price of carbon fiber. It is reported that in the carbon fiber market, the price of large tow is only 50% - 60% of that of small tow.

Under the wide application prospects and price advantages, the market demand of large tow is also growing. According to the data published in the global carbon fiber composite market report in 2019, the global carbon fiber demand will reach 103700 tons in 2019, an increase of 10.03% compared with that in 2018. Among them, the demand for standard mold large tow (tensile modulus of 230-265gpa) is 42200 tons, which has caught up with the standard mold -Small tow (41800 tons).

Breaking the monopoly of the United States and Japan

Return to Shanghai Petrochemical "48K large tow carbon fiber project" to fill the domestic blank. The reason why there is such a statement is that, in the background of the technology gap among countries around the world, large tow carbon fiber has high technical barriers, and the core technology is mainly in the hands of the United States and Japan. It is reported that in the global market of large tow carbon fiber, American and Japanese enterprises occupy 76% of the global market share.

Because of this, about 70% of the large tow carbon fibers used in China depend on imports when the relevant technologies have not been broken through. A statistical data shows that China's carbon fiber demand reaches 37800 tons, accounting for about 34% of the global demand. However, the carbon fiber production capacity in mainland China is only 17.3%, and the average capacity utilization rate is less than 50%.

In order to break the monopoly of the United States and Japan and realize the localization of large tow carbon fiber, many Chinese enterprises have begun to "tackle the difficulties".

For example, in 2016, the company carried out the industrial research and test of 48K large tow precursor; in 2018, the company successfully developed the polymerization, spinning, oxidation and carbonization process technology of large tow carbon fiber; in the same year, the project of "Pan based large tow precursor and carbon fiber technology and process package development" passed the appraisal, which meant that China officially broke through the bottleneck of large tow.

In addition to Shanghai Petrochemical, Jilin chemical fiber, Guangwei composite, Lanzhou fiber and other Chinese enterprises are also making efforts in various aspects. Jilin chemical fiber also obtained the first batch of 120 tons of 48K large tow carbon fiber precursor export order in 2019, achieving the "small target" of domestic 48K large tow carbon fiber batch export.

Generally speaking, with the breakthrough of 48K large tow carbon fiber industrialization in China, domestic 48K large tow carbon fiber has gradually moved to large-scale production.