On November 18 of 2013, the Sixth Element Materials Technology Company launched its 100-ton graphite oxide and graphene powder production line, which made a big step from R&D to industrialization of Changzhou’s Carbon Industry. This company focuses on the R&D, production and distribution of grapheme powder. As one of the graphene material domestic enterprises with biggest scale, the Sixth Element had established closely cooperative relationship with many colleges, scientific institutions and enterprises in the beginning. In the following three years, the company is going to promote their product’s application on functional coatings, composite materials, lithium-ion battery electrode materials, and complete the commercialization of the graphene material. It is estimated that the annual production of the graphite powder will reach 1000 ton in 2016, the sales income will exceed 600 million yuan.

Carbon material is viewed as a revolutionary breakthrough of material industry, and also a strategic rising industry in the future. In this field, China and the world are at the same starting line. Especially when the monolayer graphene was separated from the graphite block in 2004, its very unique nature had high attention from academic and industrial circle. And a lot of global level corporations started to invest in.

Changzhou is an important provincial new material research and manufacturing base. The Carbon Industry mainly gathered in Wujin and Xinbei district. At present, there are 3 provincial level new material science and technology industrial parks, e.g. Changzhou Advanced Carbon Material Science & Technology Industrial Park of Jiangsu Province. The graphene institute and scientific industrial park established in 2011, is the first professional R&D platform in China which dedicates in the industrialized application of graphene.

In January of 2013, the T700 carbon fiber produced by Sinofibers Technology entered the market and started stable supply after being tested by the customers for two and a half years. Till now, Sinofibers technology is the only enterprise in China could produce T700 carbon fiber, with full IPR. 98% of the production equipments are designed by themselves and made in China, and the key auxiliary are produced by themselves or in China too.

In recent years, by focusing on nano carbon materials, carbon fiber and composite materials, special graphite, etc., Changzhou gathers a big group of strong science & technology enterprises of carbon material, products and equipment manufacturing.

Base on the high value-added and hi-tech carbon material products, focuses on the technological breakthrough, bridge the capital, accelerate the import and incubation of key enterprises, develop application enterprises in midstream and downstream, integrate the upstream resource-oriented enterprises at the right time.

Changzhou has regarded advanced carbon material application as a strategic industry for promoting local economy.

Changzhou will base on West Taihu Lake Science & Technology Industrial Park to attract leading talents and research platforms of graphene, carbon nano-tube, fullerene, etc., to develop graphene transparent conductive film for smart terminals, graphene composite lithium-ion battery arode materials, etc., to expand production capacity and scale and develop downstream applications, and to have breakthrough on large size and high end static pressure graphite products and realize industrialized technology applications.

In 2015, the industrial product output of above scale carbon material industrial chain is estimated to reach 5 billion yuan, with an average annual growth of about 51%.

Chris Zhang

Vice DIvision Chief

+86-519-86187196

Chris.zhang@ciip.gov.cn