Sinopec announced on January 5 that its Shanghai Petrochemical "12000 tons / year 48K large tow carbon fiber" project officially started construction. This is the first domestic enterprise to break through the industrialization technology of 48K large tow carbon fiber known as "black gold", marking that China's large tow carbon fiber has successfully embarked on the road of large-scale production from R & D and trial production.

According to reports, in the domestic carbon fiber industry, each bundle of carbon fiber in small tow is between 11000 and 12000, and each bundle of carbon fiber in large tow is more than 48000 (48K). The biggest advantage of 48K large tow is that it can greatly improve the production capacity and quality performance of carbon fiber single strand under the same production conditions.

The large tow carbon fiber developed and trial produced by Shanghai Petrochemical Co., Ltd. is a new type of high strength fiber material with more than 95% carbon content. Its mechanical properties are excellent, the specific gravity is less than 1 / 4 of steel, the strength is 7 to 9 times of steel, and it has corrosion resistance. It is known as the "king of new materials", also known as "black gold". It can be widely used in aircraft parts, rail transit raw materials, body manufacturing, etc.

The project includes 12000 T / a 48K large tow carbon fiber and 24000 T / a precursor fiber, with a total investment of 3.5 billion yuan. It is a major industrial project in Shanghai, and is planned to be completed by 2024. The project adopts the self-developed one-step polyacrylonitrile based advanced production process. After putting into production, it is expected to change the situation that China's large tow carbon fibers are all dependent on imports and long-term demand exceeds supply, effectively promote the development of domestic carbon fiber industry and assist the manufacturing in China.

It is reported that carbon fiber technology has strict technical barriers, so far only Japan, the United States and a few other developed countries have and master it. Shanghai Petrochemical, together with more than 10 universities, scientific research institutes and enterprises including Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Institute, Shanghai Engineering Company and Fudan University, has carried out collaborative innovation of "production, learning, research and application". In 2018, it made a major breakthrough, successfully trial produced 48K large tow carbon fiber, and went through the whole process of technology. By 2020, Sinopec Shanghai has obtained 165 patents related to carbon fiber. After more than ten years of efforts, China's carbon fiber has achieved a major breakthrough from 12K to 48K, and successfully realized the leap of R & D and production technology from quantitative change to qualitative change.

(Qu Jian)