From the perspective of the global large tow carbon fiber market, the well-known American carbon fiber company ZOLTEK still has an absolute advantage, but the company has been acquired by Japan`s Toray.
In fact, in recent years, well-known companies in the world have been adding large tows. In February 2014, Toray of Japan completed the acquisition of Zoltek for USD 584 million, strengthening its low-cost, large-tow carbon fiber supply capacity. In April 2018, Japan`s Toray announced that it would increase the large-tow carbon fiber production capacity of its US subsidiary Zoltek, increasing the capacity of Zoltek’s Hungarian plant from the previous 10,000 tons to 15,000 tons; since then, It also announced that the production capacity of Zoltek's Mexico plant will be increased from 5,000 tons per year to 10,000 tons per year.
In November 2017, Solvay completed the acquisition of European Carbon Fiber GmbH (European Carbon Fiber GmbH), a German manufacturer of large tow (50K) polyacrylonitrile-based carbon fibers. In December 2019, Solvay also announced that it has reached a joint development agreement with German carbon fiber manufacturer SGL to expand the application of large tow (50K) and medium modulus carbon fiber composite materials in the civil aviation market.
The huge increase in market demand for wind power blades drives the rapid rise of large tow.
In the Chinese market, in addition to ZGLX Carbon Fiber Technology Group, currently, the main manufacturers with large tow carbon fiber production capacity include JLTG Carbon Fiber Technology Group, JLJG Carbon Fiber Co., Ltd., SHSH Carbon Fiber Technology Group, etc. Especially in recent years, as the demand for large-tow carbon fiber for wind power blades has increased by "leaping", the demand for large-tow carbon fiber in the domestic market has rapidly heated up, which has also stimulated continuous breakthroughs in carbon fiber preparation technology and industrialization technology. Rapid expansion of scale.
JLTG Carbon Fiber Technology Group is the "pioneer" in the industrialization of large carbon fiber tows in China. In 2019, its "25K~50K polyacrylonitrile-based precursor and carbon fiber key technology and industrial development" project passed the appraisal, and the overall technology of the project reached the international advanced level.
The project developed the core technology and key equipment for the industrialization of large tow carbon fibers (25K~50K), and developed the DMAC wet "two-step" spinning technology to prepare homogeneous structure precursors, and realized a single line of 5000 tons of 25K~ Stable production of 50K raw yarn; developed a constant tension control technology for large tow fibers in the pre-oxidation process, combined with intelligent temperature control and automatic decoking technology, to achieve stable production of single-line 2000-ton 25K-50K carbon fibers. The project has independent intellectual property rights, and has an overall annual production capacity of 16,000 tons of large tow precursors and 4,000 tons of large tow carbon fibers.
Hay Think understands that since 2019, JLTG Carbon Fiber Technology Group's large tow yarn market demand has grown rapidly, and the scale effect has gradually emerged.
It is also understood that JLTG Carbon Fiber Technology Group is currently building a project with an annual output of 40,000 tons of carbon fiber precursor; JLJG is expanding its large tow carbon fiber production capacity.
In March of this year, SHSH Carbon Fiber Technology Group also announced that it plans to invest 3.5 billion yuan to build 24,000 tons/year carbon fiber precursors and 12,000 tons/year 48K large tow carbon fiber projects. The project will adopt self-developed technology to build 2 series of raw silk production lines, with a single series design capacity of 12,000 tons/year; 6 carbon fiber production lines, each with a capacity of 2,000 tons/year.