JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #88 - April 2014 - Special JEC Americas Spring Edition - 17

Market

carbon

Many growth drivers
for carbon fibre
Carbon fibres have never been so popular. Aerospace comes to mind
first, of course, but there are promising volumes in the making for
the automotive market in particular, and also for wind energy and
pressure vessels. How to supply these volumes, knowing that the
investment required for carbon fibre production is colossal? Here are
some possibilities and recent developments.

- Many growth drivers
for carbon fibre ........... p17
- Overview of the US
composites industry:
The new JEC study ....... p23

Cytec (400 MT) and Nippon Graphite
Fiber (240 MT).

A

s usual, our annual update on the
market for carbon fibre compares capacity and demand. Future demand
will require investment - some of which has
already been lined up. However, research
also has a role to play in preparing for the
future.

The 2008 financial crisis slowed down the
development of carbon fibre in industrial
markets, although the fundamentals behind
the growth of demand are more than ever
present, starting with automotive. For auto
builders, 2020-2021 will be a major cut-off
period, as that is when they will be required
to reduce the CO2 emissions of new vehicles
Production capacities
to 95g/km in Europe, 113g/km in the U.S.,
There is not space here to review the differand 119g/km in China. To do so, they will
ences between types of carbon fibre (see
prioritize weight reduction, and carbon
JEC Composites Magazine Issues 81, 72, 65, should benefit from that.
56, 51, 48, 47, 41, 31 and 23).
As with every comparison of nameplate
By far, the most carbon fibre produced
capacity and demand, there appears to be
comes from PAN precursor fibre. There are an overcapacity. And like each time, it is
two main categories of PAN-based carbon
actually more complicated than that. Real
fibre: small tow (up to 24,000 carbon
production is usually assessed using output
filaments per tow, or 24k) for high- and
coefficients (0.7 for small tow fibres and 0.9
ultra-high-performance applications, and
for large tow fibres). The truth is that these
large tow (more than 24k), for which price
coefficients are variable from one producer
is more important as a variable than fibre
to another. China lays claim to 30 different
property variability.
producers or companies that are trying their
Nameplate capacity for small tow is an
hand at carbon fibre production, but the
estimated 89,700 metric tons/per year in
output doesn't appear to meet the country's
2013, and should rise to 111,900 metric tons expectations. At year's end 2013, the Raw
(MT) in 2016 (see Table 1). For large tow,
Materials Department under China's Minisnameplate capacity is estimated at 32,700
try of Industry & Information Technology
MT in 2013, and 43,200 MT in 2016 (see
(MIIT) announced a plan to develop a
Table 2). Global capacity (see Table 3) is
handful of leading Chinese companies ca122,400 MT in 2013 and 155,100 in 2015.
pable of competing with the world's leading
The status quo for pitch fibres reserved for
producers.
niche markets is 1,640 MT/year, divided
That said, a look at demand forecasts
up among Mitsubishi Plastics (1,000 MT), indicates that there could be a shortage over

2012 年 11 年 07-09 年

No88 April 2014 /

MAY 13. 14. 15. 20l4

AtlAntA
JEC - 25 bd de l'Amiral Bruix -75116 Paris - France
www.jeccomposites.com

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JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #88 - April 2014 - Special JEC Americas Spring Edition

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