Current situation and development prospect of carbon fiber industry in China

Carbon fiber is a carbon content of more than 90% of the fiber material, with "light and high strength" performance, the proportion is only about one-fifth of steel, but the strength can reach 5 to 7 times that of steel, and has high temperature resistance, corrosion resistance, good electrical and thermal conductivity and other characteristics, is the development of aerospace, new energy, high-end equipment manufacturing and other high-tech industries important basic materials. It is also a necessary key material in the manufacture of rockets, missiles, fighter jets, naval ships and a variety of cutting-edge military weapons, and has an irreplaceable strategic position in the field of national defense and military industry.

Carbon fiber as a dual-use key new material, over the years, due to the developed countries to implement the dual blockade of technology and products, China has been in a state of control. China began industrial application in the 1970s, but because the manufacturing process was immature and the amount was small, the cost was expensive. At that time, it was mainly used in military and other fields. Nearly 20 years, carbon fiber began to be used in the global manufacturing industry, the future trend is to replace metal materials on a large scale.

Carbon fiber industry development status

Since 2005, through the cooperation of relevant government departments and enterprises, the localization of high-performance carbon fiber has made breakthrough progress, and remarkable achievements have been made in terms of industrial scale, core technology, product quality, application expansion and economic benefits.

In 2020, due to the continuous impact of the new coronavirus epidemic and the impact of the economic downturn, the high-performance fiber industry actively responded, seized the opportunities brought by the abnormal production of relevant foreign enterprises due to the impact of the epidemic and the growth of domestic market demand, strengthened scientific and technological innovation and product quality improvement, and made significant progress in terms of technical level, application scale, and project construction.

The level of technology continues to improve, narrowing the level gap at home and abroad

China's carbon fiber industry has entered a stage of rapid development from laboratory research and development. At present, a relatively stable carbon fiber localization technology system has been formed, the polyacrylonitrile based carbon fiber precursor production process system has been diversified, the core technology of carbon fiber has been continuously broken through, and the independent capability of industrial equipment has been continuously strengthened.

Lanzhou Blue Star Fiber Co., Ltd. "Research on key technologies and equipment for industrialization of 50 K large tow carbon fiber with thousand ton NaSCN method" has filled the market gap of 50 K carbon fiber products in China through the identification of technical achievements; The Ningbo Institute of Materials of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has successfully developed QM65 (M65J grade) high-strength high-modulus carbon fiber, with fiber tensile strength and tensile modulus up to 3 857MPa and 639GPa, respectively. Jiangsu Hengshen Co., Ltd. passed the certification of 24K carbon fiber, carbon fiber fabric and carbon fiber pultrusion plate issued by DNV·GL; The carbon fiber composite material independently developed by Weihai Guangwei Composite Material Co., Ltd. has been applied to AR-500C UAV. These achievements make the overall technical level of China's carbon fiber industry into the international advanced ranks, with about 15 years to shorten the gap with developed countries of more than 30 years.

The scale of products ranks in the forefront of the world, and the trend of domestic substitution for imports is obvious

 Products can cover high-strength, high-strength medium mold, high-mode, high-strength and high-model carbon fiber (the main varieties are equivalent to T300, T700, T800, T1000, M40, M40J, M55J, etc.), carbon fiber production capacity ranks second in the world.

Under the synchronous traction of military and civilian applications, the domestic application of carbon fiber has grown rapidly, and the total domestic application in 2019 has reached 37,840.6 tons, especially the amount of wind power blades has reached 13,800 tons, which has not only become the main driving force for the application of carbon fiber in China, but also met the demand for the use of international wind power blades. The amount of sports and leisure is about 14 000 tons, the amount of construction reinforcement is about 2 000 tons, the amount of pressure vessel is about 1 500 tons, and the amount of civil field is increasing year by year.

In addition, domestic carbon fiber consumption in high-end fields such as aerospace, national defense and military industries has gradually increased. Among them, the domestic aerospace field (including military) consumption is about 1 100 tons, and the use of domestic carbon fiber is about 300 tons, accounting for 27.2%.

In 2020, the import volume of carbon fiber and products will be 30,351.6 tons, with processing trade and general trade accounting for 58.9% and 39.3%, respectively, and material processing in processing trade accounting for 99.8%. Japan was the largest source of imports with 7,531.6 tons, down 2.1 percent year-on-year, accounting for 24.8 percent of total imports. Imports from Taiwan were 7,299.0 tons, an increase of 28.8%, accounting for 24.1% of the total imports, and domestic carbon fiber has gradually been widely recognized in the domestic market. From the data in Table 2, from 2009 to 2019, the total application of carbon fiber (including products) in China increased from 7 888.5 tons to 37 840.6 tons, of which the proportion of domestic carbon fiber consumption increased from 12.7% in 2009 to 31.7%. The proportion of imports of Japan, the United States and other countries with the highest level of carbon fiber technology has declined year by year, indicating that domestic carbon fiber has become an inevitable trend to replace imports.

The economic benefit is remarkable and the market demand is obvious

The product performance of carbon fiber and its products in China basically meets the needs of high-end applications. The industrial development of domestic carbon fiber has broken the long-term technological blockade and market monopoly of Japan and the United States in China, and injected new impetus into the core competitiveness of China's manufacturing industry. The rapid growth of the domestic market demand for carbon fiber, market recognition is also continuing to improve, promote the annual production of domestic carbon fiber more than 10,000 tons, breaking the has been "capacity without production" passive situation.

Zhongfu Shenying, Weihai Development, Jiangsu Hengshen, Zhejiang Jinggong and other private enterprises with flexible system and mechanism, rich market competition experience, deep technical strength, took the lead in realizing the industrialization and stable production and large-scale application of thousand-ton carbon fiber, breaking the foreign technology blockade monopoly. Wind power blades have become the main driving force for domestic carbon fiber applications, and the amount of aerospace, pressure vessels, new energy and other fields has also increased to a certain extent. With the continuous expansion of downstream applications, high-quality carbon fiber has been in short supply.

Shanghai Petrochemical has started a new carbon fiber project in Shanghai, with a total investment of 3.5 billion yuan. The construction content includes 24,000 tons/year of raw silk and 12,000 tons/year of 48K large tow carbon fiber, which is planned to be completed by 2024. Jilin Carbon Valley started the second phase of the annual output of 50,000 tons of carbon fiber prefilament project, with a total investment of 1 billion yuan, to build five large tow carbon fiber prefilament production lines, which are expected to be fully put into operation by the end of 2021. Jilin Chemical Fiber launched an annual output of 15,000 tons of carbon fiber project, with a planned total investment of 2.44 billion yuan. Lanzhou Blue Star, Jiangsu Hengshen and other key enterprises also plan to build new carbon fiber projects.

In view of the obvious results of domestic epidemic prevention and control, the rapid recovery of economic vitality, the domestic demand for high-performance fibers will gradually increase, production will continue to improve, China's carbon fiber industry bucking the trend, production and sales are booming, and performance continues to grow. It is expected that by 2025, the domestic demand for carbon fiber will reach about 110,000 tons.

Multi-party help to achieve the development of carbon fiber industry

Since 2005, China's carbon fiber industry has gone through several stages of small tonnage test line, 100 tons pilot test line and 1,000 tons industrialization line, and is entering a new stage of large-scale production and application, and has made remarkable achievements.

On the one hand, the national special funds to support the industrial production and application of carbon fiber and composite materials, has supported more than 100 carbon fiber and composite materials industrialization projects, the scope of support covers the entire industrial chain of carbon fiber, carbon fiber composite materials and products. This has laid the foundation for the development of China's carbon fiber industry from scratch, from weak to industrial growth, ensured the independent supply of domestic carbon fiber in the national defense military and civilian fields, and provided important support for the development and growth of China's carbon fiber industry and improved the independent support capability of key materials.

In addition, industry organizations build service platforms by holding professional activities. As a bridge connecting the government and enterprises, the first is to assist in providing information, industry associations based on their understanding of the latest status quo of industry development, short board areas, key enterprises and development trends and other professional information, for government departments to determine the direction of policy support, special support areas to provide support; The second is to set up a special carbon fiber industry branch, strengthen the interpretation of industrial policies and special implementation, regularly hold professional forums, build a platform for the exchange and cooperation of China's carbon fiber industry, study, research and use, further gather industry development consensus, promote domestic carbon fiber key technology breakthroughs, upstream and downstream cooperation, application field expansion, and promote the transformation of scientific and technological achievements. Enhance the core competitiveness of China's carbon fiber industry.

The follow-up development of domestic carbon fiber industry

Although China's carbon fiber industry has made significant progress, there is still a certain gap compared with developed countries such as Japan and the United States. As a high-performance fiber, the development of carbon fiber should effectively improve the innovation ability of key core technologies, improve technology maturity, improve the consistency of fiber quality, batch stability, application process, and further expand the application in aerospace, wind power generation, rail transit, security protection, Marine engineering, high-speed transportation, environmental protection and other fields.

In addition, capacity utilization needs to be further improved. At present, China's theoretical capacity of carbon fiber has exceeded 30,000 tons, the operating capacity is about 26,500 tons, the actual production is about 12,000 tons, and the capacity utilization rate is still less than 50%. In the key auxiliary materials and equipment facilities, the use of high-quality sizing agents, oils and other supporting materials fewer varieties, carbon fiber composite resin performance needs to be further improved, can not be completely independent supply, some key varieties are still dependent on imports, restricting the performance of carbon fiber composite materials, there is also a risk of industrial chain supply. The standard system that meets the characteristics and use requirements of domestic carbon fiber has not yet been formed, the use specification and application database have not been established, the connection between manufacturing and application is not close, and the design - evaluation - verification ability of carbon fiber and its composite materials is insufficient.

Therefore, in order to ensure the sustainable development of the carbon fiber industry, it is necessary to continue to improve the capacity utilization rate and accelerate the elimination of backward production capacity; Expand the depth, breadth and specialization of carbon fiber standardization work, and train experienced carbon fiber composite material designers. In terms of design scheme, material selection, preparation process, practical application, etc., we should be closely connected with the downstream market, improve the scale application of China's carbon fiber in the high-end field, make more substantial progress in production and application, and continue to improve the comprehensive competitiveness of China's carbon fiber leading enterprises.