JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #65 - May/June 2011 - 18

focus: carbon

Carbon fibres: great opportunities but a lot of challenges
Carbon fibres are being used more and more. The automotive and wind energy sectors are likely to experience a dramatic increase in their use. Car manufacturers have begun to develop partnerships in order to secure their supplies. Over the medium to long term, carbon fibre manufacturers will have to invest massively in order to meet the demand, and do so quickly enough so that their customers are not forced to seek an alternative.
approximately 20,000 metric tons (MT) per year out of a total of 31,000. By 2015, the sport & leisure sector should see its consumption level out at 7,000 MT per year. At the same time, industrial consumption should increase from 20,000 to 47,000 MT per year. It could even attain 110,000 MT by 2020 (see Figure 2). The wind sector, and its ever larger turbine blades, is likely to be the main driver of growth over the medium term, with the automotive sector driving growth over the long term. This latter sector alone could change the entire face of the carbon fibre composites industry. PAN (polyacrylonitrile) precursor. For "small tows" (less than 24,000 filaments), the production capacity is estimated at 57,650 MT in 2010 and 71,000 in 2013 (see Table 1). These are nominal capacities which offer no real idea of what is actually produced. For this reason, an output coefficient is used. It may be noted that the five biggest producers of "small tows" account for about 85% of the market in terms of capacity, and that about 30% of these carbon fibres are produced in Japan. The magnitude-9 earthquake that hit Japan in March 2011 does not seem to have affected the carbon fibre and PAN precursor production plants, which are located in the south of the country.

jec composites magazine / No65 May - June 2011
here has been a particularly high number of announcements concerning carbon fibres since our last briefing on the carbon fibres market (JEC Composites Magazine No. 56). While the aerospace industry has simply consolidated its procurement for the ramping up of validated programmes, and the upcoming programmes for which deliveries are about to get underway, the automotive sector has made one announcement after the next, with the German companies leading the way. These followed hot on the heels of the Japanese companies, who were the first to react on account of

their pro-environmental innovation approach and their proximity to the biggest carbon fibre manufacturers.

Demand

In 2010, socalled "industrial" applications – i.e. excluding sport & leisure and aerospace – already represented two thirds of all carbon fibre consumption (see Figure 1). They consume

Fig. 1: Carbon fibre consumption by main sector from 2008 to 2015 in kilotonnes – Source: Courtesy of SGL Group

Production capacity

Carbon fibres for the most part are produced using

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #65 - May/June 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #65 - May/June 2011