The first in China! Sinopec's 10,000-ton 48K large tow carbon fiber was successfully put into production! Or will drive a large market of hundreds of billions of dollars

The new material carbon fiber is called "black gold" and is widely
used in the industrial field.
Due to its complex production process, the country has long relied on imports
.
At present, this situation has changed, Sinopec announced today that China's first domestic production line of large tow carbon fiber was successfully put into production in Shanghai, and the domestic carbon fiber market ushered in new development opportunities
.

China's first large tow carbon fiber domestic production line was put into production

On the production line of the first 10,000-ton large tow carbon fiber project in China, carbon fiber precursors are processed by spinnerets, oxidation furnaces and carbonization furnaces and changed from white to black carbon fiber products
.
In the carbon fiber industry, the number of carbon fiber roots greater than 48,000 per bundle is usually called large tow carbon fiber
.

Li Peng, deputy general manager of Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Carbon Fiber Division: Each tow has 48,000 fibers, and each fiber is only 1/7 to 1/8 of the diameter
of a hair.

Each domestic strand of carbon fiber is basically between 1,000 and 12,000, which is called a small tow
.
For a long time, the development of carbon fiber in China has mainly achieved a breakthrough in small tow carbon fiber, but due to the high cost of small tow carbon fiber, it has affected the enthusiasm of
downstream enterprises to apply carbon fiber.
The biggest advantage of large tows is to achieve low
production costs.

At present, Sinopec has developed and trial-produced large-tow carbon fiber, which is a high-strength new fiber material
with a carbon content of more than 95%.
It is less than a quarter of the density of steel, 7 to 9 times stronger than steel, and also has corrosion resistance
.
The entire project is planned to be completed and put into operation in 2024, with an annual production capacity of 12,000 tons
of large tow carbon fiber.

Carbon fiber has broad application prospects in wind power, high-speed rail, automotive and other fields

Carbon fiber is an important raw material for the development of strategic emerging industries such as wind power, high-end equipment manufacturing, and new energy vehicles, and is also an important foundation for the development and upgrading of large aircraft, satellites, ships and other equipment.

In a wind power equipment manufacturing company in Shanghai, the production of wind turbine blades uses a large amount of carbon fiber, which can reduce the weight of the blade by 15%-20% and improve the power generation capacity, especially when manufacturing blades of 100 meters and longer, carbon fiber has become an important material
.

Miao Jun, chairman of Shanghai Electric Wind Power Group Co.
, Ltd.
: The localization of carbon fiber has greatly promoted the development of
large-scale wind turbines and large wind wheels.
The demand for carbon fiber in the wind power industry will grow
rapidly in the future.
In 2021, the application of carbon fiber for domestic wind turbine blades will be 22,500 tons, and the demand
may reach 100,000 tons in the future.

In the field of rail transit, carbon fiber has a wide application prospect in the field of rail transit equipment such as high-speed trains, urban rail vehicles, maglev trains, etc.
, compared with aluminum alloy materials, the typical components of carbon fiber composite materials for rail transit vehicles can achieve weight reduction of more than 30%, which can directly reduce operating costs
.

It is understood that after the realization of the mass production of large tow carbon fiber, the company has begun to seek cooperation with new energy vehicle companies to increase the cruising range
of new energy vehicles by using lightweight carbon fiber parts.

Data show that China's carbon fiber demand will reach 62,000 tons in 2021, an increase of 27.
7% over 2020, accounting for 53% of
the global carbon fiber demand.
Experts said that carbon fiber applications in downstream markets such as new energy, wind power, photovoltaics, automobiles, and sporting goods will gradually break out, and the penetration rate will continue to increase
.

Meng Yijie, Secretary-General of China Composite Materials Industry Association: By 2030, it should be able to reach the order of 50 billion carbon fiber large tow, and the entire composite material market size driven by it should be hundreds of billions
.