SGL Carbon provided the latest news on September 7th that the company is currently expanding its production scale of soft carbon fiber felt and modernizing it. In the past two years, SGL Carbon has invested millions of euros in a German plant and built a new carbonization facility. The equipment is now in normal operation.
SGL Carbon's brand SIGRATHERM® carbon fiber soft felt is mainly used as a particularly high-quality insulating material in resistance heating and induction heating vacuum furnaces and inert gas atmosphere furnaces. Its application fields include ceramic sintering in semiconductor, solar energy and hard metal industries.
In addition, carbon fiber soft felts can also be used as battery felts in stationary energy storage and fuel cell systems (SIGRACELL® series products), as well as for the production of dual-clutch transmissions and carbon-based friction linings for similar applications in the automotive and aerospace industries. Precursor material. "Through this expansion, we have further expanded our leading position as a quality and technology leader, so that we can expand our product range according to market development. The expansion of production capacity not only allows us to produce more carbon fiber felts, but also more than before. Vigorously promote the development of new products." said Karl Hingst, director of the fiber material product group of SGLCarbon.
As a leading graphite manufacturer, SGL Carbon not only has advanced equipment and technology, but is also the world's first company to produce soft carbon fiber felt using a continuous high temperature process.
SIGRATHERM® carbon fiber soft felt from SGL carbon
SIGRATHERM® soft felt is a flexible insulating material for high-temperature applications in inert or vacuum environments, and is composed entirely of carbon fiber. The stability of the carbon fiber felt has been determined in the first production step (needling process) and runs through all subsequent high-temperature heat treatment processes.
In addition, soft felt can be used for energy storage such as redox flow batteries due to its controllable internal structure and conductivity. At present, SGL carbon's SIGRATHERM brand carbon fiber soft felt is mainly used for insulation applications, and for energy storage applications, the company has specially developed so-called battery felts, which are provided under the SIGRACELL ® brand.
The main advantages of soft carbon fiber felt include 4 aspects: very low thermal conductivity at the highest temperature; low heat capacity; suitable for very high temperatures; composed of pure carbon fiber,
The basic material for producing soft carbon fiber felt is felt made of needle punched fibers. They are processed into soft carbon fiber felts by heat treatment at 800-1,000°C. If these felts are processed at higher temperatures above 2,000°C, the carbon fibers will increasingly exhibit a graphite-like structure, forming the so-called "graphite soft felt."