Our country has completed the construction of the production line with the largest single-lane capacity for continuous carbon fibers.
On May 8th, a reporter from the China Petrochemical News Office learned that the first phase of the 30,000-ton/year large filament carbon fiber production project of Shanghai Petrochemical had two production lines put into operation and started to produce qualified products. The product performance has reached the international advanced level. This is the largest single-line production line of 48k large filament carbon fiber in China, with a single-line designed annual production capacity exceeding 3,000 tons.
This project is based on the proprietary large filament carbon fiber technology of Shanghai Petrochemical and the abundant green electricity resources in Inner Mongolia. It plans to build 10 energy-efficient carbon fiber production lines. In this first phase, 2 production lines have been completed. The construction speed is fast, the domestication rate is high, and the cost per ton of product is low.
Based on the original large filament carbon fiber technology of Shanghai Petrochemical, through continuous research and iterative optimization, the single-line production capacity of this project has been increased by 50% compared to the existing production line. The domestic production rate of key equipment has reached 100%. From the official start of construction to the mechanical completion, it took 188 days, setting a new record for the fastest construction speed of similar facilities in the industry.
Relying on the abundant wind and solar energy resources as well as the cost advantage of human resources in Inner Mongolia, the green electricity usage rate of the project can reach over 60%. Compared with using coal power, each production line can reduce carbon emissions by 20,000 tons per year, equivalent to planting 1.25 million trees. At the same time, the project has increased capital investment and introduced China Petrochemical Corporation, Dongfang Wind Power, Wusuqi State-owned Investment Group, and Jianxin Investment, forming an industrial closed loop covering technical support, market application, policy support, and capital guarantee. This has attracted strategic partners for pultruded board in the downstream wind power sector to settle in Ordos, gradually building a "green electricity - carbon fiber new materials - wind power industry" circular industrial chain system that links green energy with high-end new materials, promoting the high-quality development of the carbon fiber industry chain.
It is reported that the 8 production lines in the second phase of this project are expected to be fully completed and put into operation by the end of 2027.
Carbon fiber has excellent properties and is known as the "King of New Materials" and "Black Gold". In the carbon fiber industry, any bundle of carbon fibers with more than 48,000 roots (i.e., 48k) is usually referred to as large filament carbon fiber. The large filament carbon fiber developed and produced by Shanghai Petrochemical is a new type of high-strength fiber material with a carbon content of over 95%. It has excellent mechanical properties, with a density less than one quarter of that of steel, and its strength is 7 to 9 times that of steel. It also has the property of corrosion resistance. Compared with small filament carbon fiber, the greatest advantage of large filament carbon fiber is that under the same production conditions, the single-line output is high, the production cost is low, and the advantages of large-scale application are obvious.
Sinopec Petrochemical is the first in China and the fourth in the world to master the core technology of large filament carbon fibers. It is also the first enterprise in the world to achieve commercial operation of 48k large filament carbon fibers above T700 level. Currently, it has the production capacity of nearly 20 types of carbon fiber products with different filament specifications such as 24k, 48k, and 60k. It has embarked on a collaborative innovation path combining "production, learning, research, and application" with the enterprise as the main body. By the end of 2025, Sinopec has applied for 868 patents in the field of carbon fibers and their composites, ranking first in China and third in the world in terms of patent applications, and has obtained 417 patents and completed 4 PCT applications.
