According to the "Global Carbon Fiber in Light Weight Pressure Vessels Market to 2027" market report released by Thin Sight Partners, the global light weight carbon fiber pressure vessel market size was US$187 million in 2018. It is expected that the market size will continue to grow at a compound annual rate of 11.4% before 2027. The growth rate increases and the total market size will reach 486.5 million US dollars by 2027.
According to the analysis of the report, 12k and 24k carbon fibers currently account for the largest share of global carbon fibers for light pressure vessels. In the specifications of carbon fiber products, carbon fiber as a bundle is composed of thousands of monofilaments, so 12k and 24k represent 12,000 and 24,000 monofilaments in a bundle of carbon fiber. The main reason for adopting 12k and 24k specification products is their competitive cost. In the previous article of this public account, "Analysis of the Price Influencing Factors of High-Performance Carbon Fiber", the cost of different k-number carbon fibers was introduced. The cost of a 3k specification product of Toray's carbon fiber is 50-70 US dollars/kg, 6k specification product The cost is 40-50 US dollars/kg, and the cost of 12k carbon fiber can be reduced to less than 30 US dollars/kg.
Another reason for using 12k and 24k carbon fibers is that other specifications of fibers may need to be wound in three layers during the pressure vessel winding process, while using 12k and 24k only requires one layer, so the cost is controllable and the workload is less. In addition, 12k, 24k carbon fiber can also be used in military and industrial robots and scientific equipment.
As North America gradually becomes one of the fastest growing regions for natural gas vehicles, manufacturers are planning to make more use of low-cost local natural gas. The continuous growth of natural gas vehicles will lead to an increase in the demand for carbon fiber in light pressure vessels. At present, many leading carbon fiber pressure vessel manufacturers are located in North America, and they continue to increase the scale of carbon fiber production to meet the growing needs of customers.
Light-weight pressure vessels have put forward more and more stringent requirements for high-pressure hydrogen storage. Carbon fiber is considered to be the best choice for producing reliable and safe pressure vessels, because carbon fiber has the ability to maintain high pressure of hydrogen. According to the precursor type, the current global carbon fiber in the light pressure vessel market can be divided into polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and pitch-based carbon fiber, but most of them are based on PAN-based carbon fiber. Therefore, the growing demand for carbon fiber in young pressure vessels in 2020-2027 will lead to a further increase in the production of PAN-based carbon fiber.