With the launch of a new round of “Western Development” strategy, northwest cities such as Xi’an and Lanzhou are once again attracting attention. In the field of carbon fiber, Lanzhou Blue Star Fiber Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Lanzhou Blue Star Fiber”) has also attracted much attention in recent years due to its continuous breakthroughs in the industrialization of large-tow carbon fiber.
Recently, the company has received another good news. On July 22, the China National Textile and Apparel Industry Federation organized an online video conference to conduct technical achievement appraisal of Lanzhou Blue Star Fiber’s “Research on Key Technologies and Equipment for the Industrialization of Thousand-ton NaSCN Method 50K Large Tow Carbon Fiber” project.
After unanimous evaluation by the expert committee, the project passed the appraisal. The appraisal committee believes that the company’s “overall technology of the large-tow carbon fiber production process has reached the international advanced level.”
In fact, since this year, some companies have announced that they will expand investment in the large-tow field, and some companies have announced that they will expand investment in the large-tow field. It will be newly involved in large tows, and the new large tow project announced last year has also been promoted. Various signs indicate that large tows are becoming a new driving force for the booming development of my country’s carbon fiber market.
Lanzhou Blue Star conquers the kiloton level 50K Industrialization Technology
Lanzhou Bluestar Fiber is located in Gansu International Port Park, Xigu District, Lanzhou City, and is affiliated to China Bluestar (Group) Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of China National Chemical Corporation. (hereinafter referred to as “Blue Star Group”). The company uses the NaSCN one-step process to produce carbon fiber precursors, which has the characteristics of short process, low energy consumption, and large single-line production capacity. It is one of the representative enterprises in my country that can achieve low-cost, industrialized production of large-tow carbon fibers.
Xu Lianghua, deputy dean of the School of Materials Science and Engineering of Beijing University of Chemical Technology and director of the National Carbon Fiber Engineering Technology Research Center, is one of the “star figures” in the industry. To measure the industrialization level of my country’s carbon fiber companies, he once proposed the concept of the “thousand-ton club”, which means that leading companies have carbon fiber production lines with a single-line capacity of 1,000 tons. From this point of view, Lanzhou Blue Star Fiber has now become an enterprise capable of large-scale production of NaSCN method 50K large tow carbon fiber at a thousand-ton level, and has become a member of the “Thousand-ton Club”.
There is harvest only if you work hard. In fact, Lanzhou Blue Star Fiber has been struggling in this field for more than 10 years. Time goes back to May 2009, 11 years ago. At that time, the hot summer in the northwest had not yet arrived. Lanzhou Blue Star Fiber, which was registered in 2008, started building a factory and infrastructure in Xigu District, Lanzhou with its ambitions for carbon fiber. .
The domestic carbon fiber industry during that period was basically still in the initial stage of industrialization. Since 2004, the price of foreign carbon fiber has continued to rise. When my country imports carbon fiber from abroad, the price rises rapidly to more than 8,000 yuan/kg, and has since exceeded 10,000 yuan/kg. In 2005, affected by the situation in the Taiwan Strait and other factors, my country’s channels for importing carbon fiber were almost interrupted, and the carbon fiber needed domestically was cut off from foreign supplies. During this period, the severe market situation has attracted much attention as a strategic material, carbon fiber, and has also given many people a deeper understanding of its value as the “King of New Materials”.
Perhaps it was precisely because of the market situation at that time that Blue Star Group made up its mind to do something in the field of carbon fiber. At that time, the domestic carbon fiber industry was in its first round of investment, and all types of capital were eager to take a chance, and Blue Star Group became one of them. However, everything is still unknown about the development prospects of enterprises. After all, everyone is “crossing the river by feeling for the stones.”
In the long period of about 10 years from 2003 to 2013, the domestic carbon fiber industry as a whole struggled hard to solve the problem of “from scratch”. At this stage, my country’s carbon fiber industry has just taken the step of industrialization and is limping forward. However, corporate competitors in Japan and other countries have gradually adopted the strategy of “significant price reductions for entry-level T300 products and significant price increases for high-level products.” Affected by internal and external troubles and heavy pressure, the domestic carbon fiber industry during this period was basically in an “industry-wide loss-making state.” But at that time, everyone was holding their breath and gritted their teeth and had to move on, and Lanzhou Blue Star Fiber was no exception.
In 2012, Lanzhou Blue Star Fiber’s 1,500-ton carbon fiber production line with an annual output was successfully commissioned. In August 2013, its 5,000-ton/year carbon fiber raw filament production line was successfully put into trial run. In July 2014, after testing by Beijing University of Chemical Technology, the 12K carbon fiber produced by Lanzhou Blue Star Fiber reached the international quality standard of T700 for similar products. In April 2016, its 1,500 tons/year carbonization unit achieved continuous production operation. In 2018, Blue Star Group invested hundreds of millions of yuan in technological transformation of Lanzhou Blue Star fiber raw silk production line, and the products were upgraded from the original 24K to 50K. In the second half of 2019, its 50K carbon fiber production line was fully passed. The products rely on the cost advantage of self-produced raw silk and the R&D advantages of Beijing Carbon Fiber Technology Research Center.Stable production of 2,000-ton 25K~50K raw filaments; developed constant tension control technology for large tow fibers in the pre-oxidation process, combined with intelligent temperature control and automatic decoking process, to achieve stable production of 2,000-ton 25K~50K carbon fibers in a single line. The project has independent intellectual property rights and has an overall annual production capacity of 16,000 tons of large tow raw silk and 4,000 tons of large tow carbon fiber.
The reporter learned that since 2019, the market demand for large tow raw silk in Jilin Carbon Valley has grown rapidly, and the scale effect has gradually emerged. The latest semi-annual report released by Jilin Carbon Valley shows that in the first half of this year, despite the impact of the epidemic, its main business revenue bucked the trend and grew to 213 million yuan, a significant increase of 58.08% year-on-year; it achieved a net profit of 34.03 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 34.03 million yuan. An increase of 38.98 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 788.03%.
“In the first half of the year, the main reason for the company’s main revenue growth was the rapid expansion of the civilian product market, the expansion of both horizontal and vertical application fields, the rapid expansion of carbon fiber raw silk sales, and the reduction of costs; the main reason for the substantial increase in profits was The reason is that as the products are finalized and the volume of large tow products is increased, the gross profit margin of the main products has steadily increased.” Jilin Carbon Valley stated in the announcement.
It is also understood that Jilin Carbon Valley is currently building a carbon fiber precursor project with an annual output of 40,000 tons; Jilin Jinggong is expanding its large-tow carbon fiber production capacity.
In March this year, Shanghai Petrochemical also announced that it plans to invest 3.5 billion yuan to build 24,000 tons/year carbon fiber raw filament and 12,000 tons/year 48K large tow carbon fiber projects. The project will use self-developed technology to build 2 series of raw silk production lines, with a single series designed production capacity of 12,000 tons/year; 6 carbon fiber production lines will be built, each with a production capacity of 2,000 tons/year.
“With the application Continuing to deepen, large tow products began to be in short supply. The company’s new project is to meet the domestic market demand for large tow carbon fiber and composite materials, and to promote the company’s carbon fiber technology progress. Next, the company will reduce costs and expenses, Stabilize product quality and improve product profitability.” Shanghai Petrochemical stated in the announcement.
Guangwei Composite Materials announced in July 2019 that it will be built in three phases in Baotou The “10,000-ton carbon fiber industrialization project” has also made the latest progress. On July 24 this year, Guangwei Composite Materials issued an announcement announcing that its subsidiary Inner Mongolia Guangwei Carbon Fiber Co., Ltd. had acquired the right to use a land parcel in Jiuyuan Industrial Park, Baotou, Inner Mongolia, for 112.5601 million yuan, with an area of approximately 420,000 square meters.
Regarding the popularity of the large tow market, Lin Gang analyzed and pointed out: “An important goal for enterprises to choose large tow varieties is to pursue lower costs and large-scale industrial applications. In the past, For more than ten years, the overall development of China’s carbon fiber industry has basically followed the technical route of Japanese companies, and has made great achievements in the preparation of small tows. However, for the preparation of large tows, from the perspective of system technology, China is currently in a large number of There is still a relative lack of experience in equipment and engineering. Overall, at present, the demand for large tows in domestic and foreign markets is very strong, so next, our country should strive to develop large tow carbon fiber preparation system technology. It should also be noted that the industry Overall cost reduction and efficiency improvement are very critical, including the development of low-cost large tows and low-cost high-performance large tows. Of course, low-cost technology is actually a systematic project, and large tows are only one of the options. Overall, speed improvement (high speed) and tow lifting (tow) are both critical.”
“Technically, domestic large-tow carbon fiber manufacturers currently have competitive advantages. Next, everyone will We need to work harder on cost control. Because when domestic large-tow carbon fiber faces competition from foreign products, when the performance reaches the standard, it is mainly driven by cost.” Yan Bing said. </p
