A new carbon fiber soft felt production line at SGL carbon is about to start operation

According to an update provided by SGL Carbon on September 7, the company is currently expanding and modernizing its production of carbon fiber soft felt
.
Over the past two years, SGL Carbon has invested millions of euros in a new carbonization facility at its Mettingen plant near Augsburg, Germany, which is now in normal operation
.

SGL Carbon's soft carbon fiber felts under the brand name SIGRATHERM® are mainly used as a particularly high-quality insulating material in resistance-heated and induction-heated vacuum furnaces as well as in inert gas atmosphere furnaces, and their applications include ceramic sintering in the semiconductor, solar and hard metal industries.
craft
.

In addition, carbon fiber soft felts can also be used as battery felts in stationary energy storage and fuel cell systems (SIGRACELL® series), and as carbon-based friction linings for the production of dual clutch transmissions and similar applications in the automotive and aerospace industries.
precursor material
.
“With this expansion, we have further extended our leading position as a quality and technology leader, allowing us to expand our product range in line with market developments
.
The capacity expansion not only allows us to produce a higher volume of carbon fiber felt, but also more than before.
A strong impetus for the development of new products,
” said Karl Hingst, director of the Fiber Materials Product Group at SGLCarbon
.

As a leading graphite manufacturer, SGL Carbon not only has advanced equipment and technology, but also is the first company in the world to produce carbon fiber soft felt by continuous high temperature process
.

SGL carbon company SIGRATHERM® soft carbon fiber felt

SIGRATHERM® Soft Felt is a flexible insulating material for high temperature applications in inert or vacuum environments, consisting entirely of carbon fibers
.
The stability of the carbon fiber felt has been established in the first production step (needling process) and continues throughout all subsequent high temperature heat treatments
.

Furthermore, soft felts can be used for energy storage such as redox flow batteries due to their controllable internal structure and electrical conductivity
.
At present SGL carbon's SIGRATHERM brand soft carbon fiber felt is mainly used for insulation applications, while for energy storage applications, the company has specially developed so-called battery felt, available under the SIGRACELL ® brand
.

The main advantages of carbon fiber soft felt include 4 aspects: very low thermal conductivity at the highest temperature; low heat capacity; suitable for very high temperatures; composed of pure carbon fiber
.

The base material for the production of carbon fiber soft felt is a felt made of needle-punched fibers
.
They are processed into carbon fiber soft felts by heat treatment at 800-1,000°C
.
If these felts are processed at higher temperatures above 2,000°C, the carbon fibers increasingly take on a graphite-like structure, forming so-called "graphite soft felts"
.
The manufacturing process of carbon fiber soft felt is shown in the following figure: