China Graphene Industry Development Status and Manufacturers Analysis
Graphene is a new material consisting of carbon atoms in a single-layer sheet-like structure. It is a two-dimensional material consisting of carbon atoms in sp2 hybridized orbitals forming a hexagonal planar film in the form of a honeycomb lattice with only one carbon atom thickness. According to the number of layers, it can be divided into single-layer graphene, bilayer graphene and multilayer graphene. According to the form of functionalization, there are common graphene oxide, hydrogenated graphene, fluorinated graphene and so on. According to the external morphology, there are flakes, membranes, quantum dots, nanoribbons or three-dimensional shapes and so on.
Graphene has excellent optical, electrical, and mechanical properties, and has important application prospects in materials science, micro and nano processing, energy, biomedicine and drug delivery, and is considered a revolutionary material for the future. Physicists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov of the University of Manchester, UK, successfully isolated graphene from graphite by micromechanical exfoliation, and were therefore jointly awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics. Graphene is commonly produced by mechanical exfoliation, redox, and SiC epitaxial growth methods for powder production, and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) for film production.
According to the “2022-2027 China Graphene Industry Market Depth Research and Investment Strategy Research Report” released by CRRP Industry Research Institute:
In fact graphene originally existed in nature, it is just difficult to peel off the single layer structure. Graphene stacked one layer on top of the other is graphite, and graphite 1 millimeter thick contains about 3 million layers of graphene. A pencil lightly scratched on the paper, leaving a trace could be a few layers or even just one layer of graphene.
At present, the domestic application of graphene materials, mainly concentrated in 2 major areas: a class of graphene as an additive applied in existing products to improve and enhance product performance, such as adding graphene heat dissipation coating of LED lights, graphene wall warming, graphene flooring, graphene anticorrosive coating, graphene warming fibers made of clothing, graphene anti-static tires, heating pads, graphene power batteries and other products. Another category is to use graphene film for heating film, smart bracelet, touch screen, far-infrared physical therapy products, etc.
Development status of China's graphene industry
At present, the layout of the whole domestic graphene industry chain has taken shape, basically covering the whole chain from the preparation and application research to the production of graphene products up to the downstream application. Initially formed with Beijing as the core, the eastern coastal region industrial belt and the Inner Mongolia - Heilongjiang region industrial belt as the agglomeration area, multi-location distributed industrial development pattern.
Among them, there are about 300 enterprises in the field of material preparation, with graphene powder and film as the main materials, and basically realizing mass production; and more than 600 enterprises in the field of application, covering a variety of fields such as anticorrosive coatings, thermal management materials, energy storage, electronic display, and great health. In addition, there are a number of technical services, sales, investment, testing and other enterprises, further improving the graphene industry chain system.
Currently marketed graphene materials mainly include two categories: graphene powder and graphene film. At present, the domestic annual production capacity of graphene is maintained at about 3,000 tons, while the demand is only more than one hundred tons, which has achieved commercial application in automotive, textile, military and other aspects of the application. Graphene application market there is still room for further development, graphene has a very broad prospect.
Analysis of main production regions and enterprises of graphene in China
From the production point of view, China's rich graphite resources provide a solid resource base for the development of graphene industry. China's graphite resource base reserves account for about 24% of the world's total reserves, China's graphite production is also among the world's leading, China has identified 55 million tons of crystalline graphite reserves, which is located in the world's leading. Among them, 47% of the domestic graphite reserves are distributed in Heilongjiang and 19% in Inner Mongolia.
Graphene is showing a booming trend in the country. At present, China has basically formed a graphene industry pattern with the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and Beijing-Tianjin-Hejilu regions as the aggregation area, and multi-location distributed development. China's graphene industrialization momentum is strong, and a number of industrial innovation centers with graphene characteristics have taken shape. Especially in the Yangtze River Delta region, “Oriental Carbon Valley” Changzhou because of its high concentration of graphene-related industries and attention, Ningbo has the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo Institute of Materials as a support, plus Shanghai universities and research institutes solid scientific research capabilities, synergistic development between the three places, complement each other's strengths, the production of graphene production and preparation technology breakthroughs, the pace of application of industrialization is rapid. The pace of industrialization is rapid.
China's graphene industry-related enterprise registration in 2019-2021 showed a growth trend, the number of enterprises registered in 2021 was 13,665, up 5,830 from the previous year. As of September 23, the number of new enterprise registrations in 2022 was 11,668
Graphene is one of the strongest materials known, while also being very tough and bendable. graphene has a theoretical Young's modulus of 1.0 TPa and an intrinsic tensile strength of 130 GPa. reduced graphene modified using hydrogen plasma also has very good strength, with an average modulus of up to 0.25 TPa. graphite paper, which is made up of thin flakes of graphene, possesses a lot of holes, and thus graphite paper However, functionalized graphene is obtained by oxidation, and the graphite paper made of functionalized graphene is extremely strong and tough.
On October 31, 2021, “2021 China Fujian (Yongan) Graphene Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition and Project Achievement Matchmaking Meeting” was closed. At the meeting, Saidi Research Institute of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released “China Graphene Industry Development Competitiveness Index (2021)”.
With the gradual breakthrough of batch production and large size and other problems, the pace of industrialization and application of graphene is accelerating, based on the existing research results, the first to realize the commercialization of the application of the field may be mobile devices, aerospace, new energy battery field.
Graphene research and application development continues to heat up, graphite and graphene-related materials are widely used in battery electrode materials, semiconductor devices, transparent displays, sensors, capacitors, transistors and other aspects. In view of the excellent properties of graphene materials and their potential applications, a series of important advances have been made in many disciplines, including chemistry, materials, physics, biology, environment, and energy. Researchers are committed to trying different methods in different fields to prepare high-quality, large-area graphene materials. And through the continuous optimization and improvement of the graphene preparation process, to reduce the cost of graphene preparation so that its excellent material properties to be more widely used, and gradually towards industrialization.
