China carbon fiber material industry development analysis report

Carbon fiber overview

Carbon fiber (CF or graphite) is a fiber about 5 to 10 microns in diameter, mainly composed of carbon atoms. Carbon fiber has several advantages, including high stiffness, high tensile strength, low weight, high chemical resistance, high temperature resistance and low thermal expansion. These properties make carbon fiber very popular in aerospace, civil engineering, military and motor sports, as well as other competitive sports.

Carbon fiber is a kind of microcrystalline stone ink material obtained by carbonization and graphitization of organic fibers. Carbon fiber has the characteristics of light weight, high strength, high temperature resistance, fatigue resistance, corrosion resistance, thermal and electrical conductivity, etc. It is a new material with excellent mechanical properties. In addition to applications in aerospace and other high-tech fields, carbon fiber can also be used in sporting goods, textile machinery, biological engineering of medical instruments and transport vehicles. At present, the application of carbon fiber materials in high-speed trains has some limitations. Most of the products are still in the stage of research and development, and only part of the products have been applied in practice. Therefore, the application prospect is very wide.

Carbon fiber has excellent mechanical properties and chemical stability, lower density than aluminum, higher strength than steel, is currently produced in a large number of high-performance fibers with the highest specific strength and the highest specific modulus of fiber. With light weight, high strength, high modulus, electrical and thermal conductivity, corrosion resistance, fatigue resistance, high temperature resistance, low expansion coefficient and a series of other materials irreplaceable excellent performance, widely used in aerospace, wind power blades, sports and leisure, pressure vessels, carbon/carbon composite materials, transportation construction and other fields, is an important strategic material for the development of national defense and military industry and the national economy.

In practice, carbon fibers are classified according to their mechanical properties. In practice, tensile strength and modulus are the main international standards for the classification of carbon fiber, and the TORAY classification of Japan is generally adopted in the industry. In 2011 "polyacrylonitrile base carbon fiber" national standard was officially issued and carried out, marked our country's carbon fiber industry had its own classification method and standard. According to the classification of mechanical properties, carbon fiber can be divided into high strength (GQ), high strength medium model (QZ), high model (GM), high strength and high modulus (QM). Carbon fiber is mostly used as reinforcement material and its excellent mechanical properties, so it is more classified according to its mechanical properties in use.

Development analysis of carbon fiber material industry in China

In the development process of China's carbon fiber industry, the country has given strong support, greatly promoting the development of carbon fiber industry. Enterprises and investment institutions are also optimistic about the prospect of the development of carbon fiber industry. The influx of capital from all walks of life has brought stimulus effect to the carbon fiber industry, making it show unprecedented new hot spots and new dynamics. At the same time, carbon fiber industry has a wide range of applications, its M&A demand and activity is also very obvious.

The research of CMC composites is relatively late in our country. In recent years, with the support of national projects, the relevant universities and research institutions in China have made great breakthroughs in the research of ceramic matrix composites. But at present, the application of ceramic matrix composite materials is mainly concentrated in military and aerospace fields, and the application scale in other civil fields is relatively limited.

In the next period of time, the development direction of the ceramic matrix composite material industry will be mainly to the civilian development, the process of military conversion is the stage of rapid expansion of the industry scale. Carbon fiber composites, as an emerging field in the new materials industry, is a key project supported by the national "13th Five-Year Plan". In recent years, carbon fiber composite materials are favored by the market, and the research and development of new products is also the key project of enterprise transformation and upgrading.

The patents of carbon fiber composite materials on rail trains mainly focus on four aspects: car body, bogie, equipment outside the car and internal installation. Among them, the development and application patents of car body and bogie are more.

In recent years, it has become one of the main processes, and is currently developing rapidly in carbon-carbon composites, mainly driven by the rapid development of the thermal field carbon-carbon composites required for photovoltaic furnaces.

According to the "Guidance on High-quality Development of chemical fiber Industry", during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the production and application level of carbon fiber, aramid fiber, ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fiber, polyimide fiber, polyphenylene sulfide fiber, polytetrafluoroethylene fiber and continuous basalt fiber will be improved, and the quality consistency and batch stability of high-performance fiber will be improved. Further expand the application of high-performance fibers in aerospace, wind and photovoltaic power generation, ocean engineering, environmental protection, safety protection, geotechnical construction, transportation and other fields. Specific carbon fiber composites industry planning around carbon fiber composites and high performance fiber innovation platform.

Carbon fiber composites play an important role in energy saving and performance optimization of rail transit vehicles, but there are some difficulties in the implementation process. The first is because carbon fibre is difficult and expensive to make. It costs twice as much to make as an aluminium alloy body. Moreover, the research and development technology of large car body has high requirements, and the requirements of talent and technology are relatively high, so at present, the main application in rail transit vehicles are some bearing structural parts, interior parts and so on.

According to the Development Analysis and Investment Strategy Forecast Report of China Carbon Fiber Material Industry 2022-2027 by Zhongyan Industrial Research Institute:

At present, China's high-speed railway construction is in a prosperous period. Through years of efforts and accumulation, China has fully mastered the core technology of high-speed railway, and the overall level of the industry has ranked among the world's advanced. On the crisscrossed tracks, the "China speed" of high-speed rail shows that "Made in China" has walked on the road of development guided by independent intellectual property rights. In this process, the application of carbon fiber new materials will not only promote the lightweight of high-speed trains, but also drive the high-speed rail manufacturing industry to achieve a new revolution, further improving the "China speed".

When there is an obvious demand for carbon fiber in high-speed rail manufacturing, many carbon fiber processing and manufacturing enterprises also timely target the market of high-speed rail and take the initiative to connect with the industry. Carbon fiber filament is pre-oxidized and carbonized at high temperature of 2000-3000 degrees Celsius, and can withstand high temperature of thousands of degrees Celsius. However, in specific applications, carbon fiber profilaments are mainly in the form of carbon fiber composite materials. Therefore, it is necessary to make the composite materials not only play the excellent performance of the profilaments, but also have other characteristics, so as to achieve high standards of environmental protection, safety and other aspects of high-speed rail.

According to incomplete statistics, China has planned and is under construction carbon fiber production capacity of 140,700 tons/year, a considerable amount, and the capacity utilization rate is increasing steadily. It is expected that the tension between supply and demand of carbon fiber will gradually ease in the future. According to the data, by 2020, the proportion of domestic carbon fiber in China's total carbon fiber demand has increased from 4.8% to 37.8% at present, compared with 31.7% in 2019, an increase of 53.8%, indicating an obvious trend of domestic substitution. In 2020, domestic carbon fiber demand reached 48,800 tons, a year-on-year increase of 29%, higher than the global average. It is expected that by 2025, the total domestic demand for carbon fiber will be close to 149,500 tons, and the market share of domestic carbon fiber will gradually increase.

Carbon fiber material industry development trend forecast

The patents of carbon fiber composite materials on rail trains mainly focus on four aspects: car body, bogie, equipment outside the car and internal installation. Among them, the development and application patents of car body and bogie are more. Statistics show that by 2025, China will have more than 38,000 km of high-speed rail, with more than 2,500 trains in service. The energy saving, environmental protection, comfort and convenience of trains have become the future development direction of high-speed trains. Because of its excellent performance, carbon fiber has been paid more and more attention and adopted by railway vehicle development enterprises.