Carbon fiber: taking advantage of the new energy east wind, from "following" to "leading"

"Black Gold"

In the material industry, there is such a "black gold", its proportion is less than 1/4 of steel, but the strength is 10 times
that of steel.
In other words, its weight reflects 40 times
the strength of steel.
This is the king of new materials - carbon fiber
.

Carbon fiber refers to inorganic polymer materials with carbon content of more than 90%, using polyacrylonitrile (asphalt or viscose) as raw materials, generated by high temperature oxidation, carbonization and other links, is the highest specific strength and specific modulus fiber in the current high-performance fiber, and high temperature resistance is also the best, mainly used in military and industrial fields
.

Source: Future Think Tank

Carbon fiber has become an ideal lightweight material, there are many classification standards for carbon fiber, the current classification standards mainly include: precursor type, tow specifications and mechanical properties
.

The birth of carbon fiber

In 1879, Edison invented the incandescent lamp with carbon fiber as the luminous body, which was the earliest commercial carbon fiber
.
He shapes linden endothel, jute, manila hemp and hemp rich in natural linear polymers into the desired size and shape and roasts them at high temperatures; When heated, these cellulose fibers, which consist of continuous glucose units, are carbonized into carbon fibers
.

Early carbon fibers were not structurally strong, brittle, and poorly practical
.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the emergence of man-made fibers promoted the development of carbon fiber again, and introduced carbon fiber technology into the era of
"reinvention".

In the mid-to-late 20th century, the commercialization of chemical fibers such as polyvinyl chloride, polyamide and polyacrylonitrile provided a prerequisite
for basic scientific research in the United States to create high-performance carbon fiber technology.
Since then, the basic scientific research and development of high-performance carbon fiber and industrial technology has entered the peak period
.

Carbon fiber is developing rapidly

In the past 10 years, the market demand and production capacity of domestic carbon fiber have grown rapidly, which is inseparable
from China's policy and economic and social development.
The rapid economic development has injected a steady stream of blood into the domestic carbon fiber industry, and also created favorable conditions
for the development of domestic carbon fiber in the next 10 years.

Source: China Business Industry Research Institute

Fundamentally, there are probably the following three points:

First, the new energy industry has entered a period of policy dividends

In the past ten years, China's new energy industry has developed at an amazing speed, growing at an extraordinary rate of 30% almost every year, and has become the world's largest and fastest growing wind power and photovoltaic power generation
.

The State Council's white paper "China's Energy Development in the New Era" proposes to vigorously promote low-carbon energy to replace high-carbon energy, renewable energy to replace fossil energy and other strategic measures, which indicates that the new energy industry is ushering in more policy dividends
.

During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the development and utilization of clean energy will reach a new level
.
It is expected that by 2030, the proportion of non-fossil energy consumption will reach about 25%, and more than 70% of the next energy increase will be dominated by non-fossil energy
.

In the new energy industries that benefit most from economic transformation, such as new energy vehicles, photovoltaics, and wind power, carbon fiber composite materials also play an important role, and wind power blades, photovoltaic carrier panels, and new energy vehicle parts are typical cases
of carbon fiber applications.

Second, the industrial structure is facing transformation and upgrading

In recent years, China has been vigorously promoting the transformation and upgrading of industrial structure, promoting industrial enterprises to continuously optimize industrial structure, and gradually eliminating enterprises with low added value, low brand and low technology content through policy adjustment and market regulation
.
At the same time, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is also vigorously implementing energy conservation, consumption reduction, emission reduction and pollution control, and clearly promoting the green transformation of industry
.

Under the call of green development, a large number of enterprises are actively achieving energy conservation and emission reduction
through equipment upgrading, technological innovation, capacity optimization and other means.
For example, textile, printing, papermaking and lithium battery manufacturing enterprises use carbon fiber composite rollers to replace traditional metal rollers in production equipment, and reduce energy consumption and reduce production and operation costs
through the lightweight and high performance of carbon fiber composite materials.

Thirdly, the pressure of the world arms race has increased

Due to the increase of external pressure, developed countries have increasingly strict control and blockade of military products and technologies, and the country's military equipment must be independent and controllable
.
In the case of increasing external turbulent factors, the domestic military industry is undergoing "leapfrogging" development
.
In this special period, the military industry is facing more urgent and favorable development opportunities, whether it is fundamentals or funds, the military industry has a foundation
for continuous rise.

The continuous breakthrough of the military industry requires long-term, high-investment technology research and development support, high-performance advanced composite materials have always been the darling of military equipment, high cost but strong performance carbon fiber composite military parts in this special period has achieved a substantial application growth
.

The development status of carbon fiber in China

In developed countries, the carbon fiber industry has played an important role
in supporting industrial upgrading and even the overall quality of the national economy.
China began the development of PAN-based carbon fiber at the end of the 60s and foreign countries basically synchronized, but due to various reasons, the progress was very slow, and it lagged behind developed countries by nearly 30 years
.

In 2009, the situation of backward and slow development of the domestic carbon fiber industry for many years has been changed, and the production enterprises and investment bases are increasing, and the development of the industry has entered a new period
.
However, compared with developed countries, China's current carbon fiber production capacity (especially high-end products) and the international level still have a considerable gap, and the real localization still needs a long process
.

At present, domestic carbon fiber manufacturers do not have the ability to compete with foreign enterprises in terms of enterprise proprietary technology, talent resources, production costs, marketing networks, etc.
, but the successful development of domestic carbon fiber has stabilized the market price of carbon fiber and promoted the application of
carbon fiber and products 。 Carbon fiber composite products with its light weight and high strength characteristics, with its production of low cost, will be in the domestic civil aviation, oil exploitation, wind power, pressure vessels and other industries in a large number of applications, become a new growth point in the industry, in the new energy "wind hydrogen" demand driven, carbon fiber consumption will also increase, carbon fiber and its composite materials again
.

Large tow carbon fiber

For a long time, China has mainly achieved breakthroughs
in small tow carbon fiber.
With China's first 10,000-ton 48K large tow carbon fiber project, the first set of domestic production line was put into operation at Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Carbon Fiber Industrial Base, and produced qualified products with performance comparable to the same level of products outside the United States, China's large tow carbon fiber has also successfully moved from key technology breakthroughs, industrial trial production, industrialization, to scale and localization of key equipment, breaking the passive situation
that China's carbon fiber production and equipment are subject to people.

Data show that in 2021, the global demand for carbon fiber will be about 118,000 tons, of which the demand for large tow carbon fiber will be 51,400 tons, accounting for about 43.
5%.

In 2021, China's carbon fiber demand reached 62,400 tons, an increase of 27.
7% over 2020, accounting for 53%
of the global carbon fiber demand.
Experts said that the application demand of carbon fiber in downstream markets such as new energy, wind power, photovoltaic, automobiles, and sporting goods will gradually explode, and the penetration rate will continue to increase
.

Industry experts said that China's carbon fiber industry is in a rapid development stage, according to the current enterprises have announced investment expansion plans, if all construction projects can be successfully put into production, at the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan", China's new carbon fiber production capacity will reach more than 210,000 tons, of which the new large tow carbon fiber production capacity of 176,000 tons, China's large tow capacity expansion era will begin
.

The carbon fiber market and its future applications

According to Sail Carbon Fiber's "2016-2021 Global Carbon Fiber Composite Market Report", from the global perspective, the demand for carbon fiber increased from 76,500 tons in 2016 to 118,000 tons in 2021, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.
02%, and the year-on-year growth rate in 2021 increased from 3.
05% in 2020 to 10.
42%, and the global demand is expected to reach 200,000 tons
in 2025.

In the domestic carbon fiber demand in 2021, the supply of imported carbon fiber is 33,000 tons, accounting for 53% of the total demand, it can be seen that China's carbon fiber is still mainly imported, but the proportion of imports continues to decline, and the year-on-year growth rate of imports in 2021 is only 9.
15%; The supply of domestic carbon fiber is 29,000 tons, accounting for 47% of the demand, and domestic production accounts for an increase of 9 percentage points compared with 38% in 2020, and the growth rate of domestic carbon fiber in 2021 is 58.
54%, far exceeding the growth rate of imports, indicating that domestic enterprises have made breakthroughs in carbon fiber production, and the trend of domestic substitution is obvious
.

From the perspective of application fields, the main application fields of global and domestic carbon fiber in 2021 are wind turbine blades
.
In 2021, the top three areas of global carbon fiber demand were wind turbine blades (27.
97%), sports and leisure (15.
68%) and aerospace (13.
98%); The top three domestic areas are wind turbine blades (36.
07%), sports and leisure (28.
05%) and carbon/carbon composite materials (11.
22%)
.
Demand for wind turbine blades, sports and leisure, aerospace, carbon/carbon composites and other fields occupy the main part of
the carbon fiber market demand.