Original title: China's graphene industry market status and development trend analysis in 2019 has broad application prospects, and industrial clustering continues to expand
The concept of graphene is sought after
In recent years, the graphene concept has become popular. Graphene is a two-dimensional carbon nanomaterial composed of carbon atoms with sp2 hybrid orbitals forming a hexagonal honeycomb lattice. It is the leader of the new materials industry and drives the transformation and upgrading of traditional manufacturing industries. It is reported that China is the world's second largest graphite resource country, mainly distributed in Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia and Shandong provinces.
China’s graphene industry will have a market size of RMB 300 billion in the future
As the leader of the new materials industry, graphene is driving the transformation and upgrading of traditional manufacturing industries, cultivating growth points for emerging industries, and promoting mass entrepreneurship and The role of innovation is becoming more and more significant. According to statistics from the "China Graphene Industry Strategic Planning and Corporate Strategy Consulting Report" released by the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute, as of 2017, the scale of China's graphene industry reached 7 billion yuan, an increase of more than 10 times compared with 2015. In 2018 China's graphene market is expected to reach 28 billion yuan in 2020, with an average annual compound growth rate of approximately 70.48% in the next five years, and the development momentum is very rapid. It is predicted that China's graphene market size will reach 56 billion yuan in 2019. In 2020, the market size of China's graphene industry will exceed 100 billion yuan. The average annual compound growth rate in the next five years (2019-2023) is approximately 56.39%. It is predicted that China’s graphene market size will exceed 300 billion yuan in 2023, reaching around 335 billion yuan.
Statistical situation and forecast of the market size of China's graphene industry from 2015 to 2023
Data source: Compiled by Qianzhan Industry Research Institute
Specifically, the current graphene industry In the olefin industry, the largest number of companies are involved in applications, accounting for nearly 40%. Followed by the research and development field, accounting for 19%. The number of enterprises in the technical services and preparation fields each accounted for 14%.
Although the number of graphene companies is currently growing rapidly and involves many aspects of the industrial chain, the overall business scale is small, with a large proportion of small and medium-sized and start-up companies, and relatively few medium-sized and large companies. Compared with the huge prospect market, there is still a lot of room for development.
Statistics on distribution and proportion of graphene companies in China
Data source: Compiled by Qianzhan Industry Research Institute
Analysis of shortcomings in the development of China's graphene industry
——Facing industrialization problems
At present, although graphene has left the laboratory, large-scale commercial applications still face many constraints, including technology, market, and cost. bottleneck.
The first is the technical issue. Key technologies and equipment including preparation, dispersion, application and environmental protection have yet to be broken through. Although there are currently more than 20 graphene preparation technologies, large-scale, low-cost, high-quality and large-size macro-preparation technologies have not yet achieved substantial breakthroughs, making it difficult to meet the needs of industrial mass production. Material dispersion technology and technology combined with downstream processes and engineering applications still restrict the industrialization process.
The second is the market issue. Although various application products are currently emerging in endlessly, there is a lack of truly high-quality, high-value-added and killer products that reflect the unique properties of graphene. Most of them are modifications of traditional materials or efforts to replace mature materials. The performance improvement of the modified material is not obvious, or graphene does not have to be added, and some even have adverse consequences after being added, making it difficult to gain market recognition. Some research institutions or companies claim to have made breakthroughs, but they have only produced samples or laboratory products, not commercial products at all. At present, most graphene manufacturers mainly provide graphene trial products to scientific research institutions or downstream application companies. If the downstream application market is not activated, it will be difficult for graphene to be industrialized.
Finally, there is the issue of cost. At present, most enterprises are still in the exploratory stage of small-batch production, and have not yet been able to form stable large-scale production capabilities, and there is no return of funds; moreover, the early R&D investment of enterprises is large and the cycle is long, and the application market has not yet opened, so whether it is materials The cost of both itself and the application products is very high, which hinders graphene from further entering the market.
2. Key technologies need to be broken through
After years of independent research and development, major breakthroughs have been made in graphene’s production technology, process equipment and product quality. However, the large-scale production technology of graphene is mature. The degree is still low, and there are common problems of unstable quality and large differences in properties of different batches of graphene products.
In terms of graphene powder, currently commercialized graphene products generally have problems such as uneven size and number of layers, low single-layer graphene content, specific surface area far below the theoretical value, lack of grading, and high cost. , cannot truly reflect the various excellent properties of graphene; the surface of graphene with a complete structure does not contain any groups, has weak interactions with other media, is difficult to disperse in solvents, and is even more difficult to mix with other organic or inorganic materials. complex.
As for graphene films, existing products have unavoidable structural defects caused by the growth process and surface contamination caused by the transfer process. They generally have high resistance and cannot be used in applications that should be suitable for matching their excellent electrical properties. areas of performance.
In strategic high-tech fields such as electronic information, biomedicine, energy conservation and environmental protection, they have basically been monopolized by the United States, Europe, South Korea and Japan. In particular, my country’s graphene enterprises are basically dominated by small and micro enterprises and start-ups. They lack capital investment, weak R&D capabilities, and weak market development capabilities. They are facing difficulties in cracking the bottleneck of graphene technology, promoting the application of graphene materials, and expanding the scale of the graphene industry. Insufficient efforts. If there is no good technological innovation research and development and achievement transfer and diffusion mechanism, long-term development will inevitably be sluggish.
3. The application market needs to be expanded
Graphene has only been discovered for more than 10 years and is a relatively "young" material. Judging from the current application status, graphene has mainly achieved preliminary applications. Most products use graphene combined with original materials to improve product performance. The technical threshold is relatively low, and the homogeneity situation is serious. Although the downstream application products of graphene have been initially industrialized, the real "killer" application has not yet been born. Although there are many patents in my country's graphene industry, most of them are local patent applications. The layout of foreign patent technology is relatively weak. Very few can be cited by foreign patents, and more than three-quarters of the patents come from academic institutions. Enterprises are in graphene research and development. The degree of participation needs to be further improved. There are not many high-value and high-quality core patents. The supply and demand between technology and the market are not yet matched. The chain of technology research and development, transfer, diffusion and first commercialization has yet to be opened up.
4. The standard system needs to be improved
As for the graphene standard system, graphene and its related industries are increasingly becoming a hot concept in the capital market. However, due to the short establishment time of the standard system, there are few standards for project establishment. There is a lack of national standards for graphene material classification, terminology, detection methods, etc., as well as group standards or industry standards for graphene products. As a result, graphene-related products on the market are mixed, and product quality is very uneven. Many companies actually do not have the large-scale production capacity of graphene, but they use the concept of graphene to over-hype it, which seriously affects the healthy development of the graphene industry. Therefore, my country urgently needs to establish a graphene standard system, including standard system coverage in different aspects such as graphene resources, graphene applications, environmental protection, processing equipment, etc., to regulate and guide the healthy and sustainable development of the graphene industry as soon as possible.
Analysis of development trends of China’s graphene industry
——National and local favorable policies accelerate the industrialization process
The development of graphene in my country has received support from national and local governments at all levels With strong support from local governments, my country has introduced more than 10 graphene industry-related policies since 2012, and support is still increasing.
In August 2016, the "13th Five-Year National Science and Technology Innovation Plan" issued by the State Council clearly focused on the development of advanced carbon materials represented by graphene. In January 2017, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued the "New Materials Industry Development Guide", which set forth task requirements for graphene, superconducting materials, etc., and proposed vigorously developing the graphene industry. In April 2017, the Ministry of Science and Technology released the "13th Five-Year Plan for Scientific and Technological Innovation in Materials Fields", which clearly pointed out the development areas of graphene carbon material technology: single-layer thin-layer graphene powder, high-quality large-area graphene film industrial preparation technology, flexible Large-area preparation technology for electronic devices, efficient dispersion, review and application technology of graphene powder, and high-catalytic activated carbon and material application technology.
Shenzhen, Guangxi, Fujian, Sichuan, Ningbo, Chongqing, Heilongjiang, Changzhou, Wuxi, Ningbo and other local governments have successively issued special policies and development plans for the graphene industry, and have clarified the future industry In order to achieve development goals, Guangxi Province has also promulgated the country's first graphene series local standards to guide industrial development. With the active involvement of local governments, the graphene industry has initially formed a "government-industry-university-research" cooperation and docking mechanism for collaborative innovation between the government, scientific research institutions, R&D and application enterprises. The healthy development trend will help graphene companies fully enjoy local policies, taxation With preferential treatment and financial support, industrialization development is expected to accelerate in the future.
2. Excellent performance and broad application prospects
Graphene has excellent properties that many advanced materials cannot match. At present, none of the nanomaterials in the world are as hard as graphene, and its strength is 200 times that of steel; graphene has a porous structure with a specific surface area of ??2630m2/g, which is comparable to activated carbon; graphene has excellent thermal conductivity, and its thermal conductivity The rate is comparable to that of carbon nanotubes; graphene also has excellent electrical conductivity, and the carrier mobility at room temperature can reach 100 times that of silicon, making it the material with the smallest resistance in the world; graphene's light absorption rate is only It is 2.3% and can be used to manufacture display screens and other equipment.
Graphene has a wide range of applications. In the sensor field, graphene has been widely used in the sensor field. The characteristics of graphene such as high feedback speed and extremely short response time have greatly improved the performance of the sensor and can produce sensors with different functions.
In the field of energy storage and new displays, the reason why graphene can be used as a transparent conductive electrode material is because it has excellent light transmittance and conductivity. It is used in flexible touch screens, light panels, and solar panels. It has been widely used in many aspects.
In the field of semiconductor materials, graphene is expected to replace silicon because of its excellent conductivity. Its extremely low resistivity can effectively reduce the inductance phenomenon in circuit boards, enhance the performance of electronic computers, and reduce power consumption.
In the biomedical field, graphene and its derivatives play an important role in the biomedical field. Graphene has the property of easily immobilizing proteins and maintaining their activity, and can be used to make biosensors. If the problem of batch preparation of graphene can be effectively solved, it will have broader application and development space in many fields.
3. The industry has entered a period of rapid development
After vigorous development in recent years, the graphene industry is entering the growth stage from the introduction stage. my country’s graphene industry has evolved from a basic Material research and development has shifted towards the development of applied products. Currently, there are many domestic companies engaged in the development of graphene application products, ranging from listed companies to start-ups. Graphene preparation technologies, such as redox methods and CVD, have gradually become mainstream. At present, graphene The price of graphene products meets the conditions for industrial use;
In addition, the application of graphene in composite materials and other fields has become increasingly mature, and the market has grown rapidly, such as mobile phone touch screens, lithium-ion batteries, supercapacitors, reinforced plastics, and anti-corrosion Composite material fields such as coatings and graphene temperature control materials; graphene is a non-standard product, targeting the high-end application market. It needs to meet the customized needs of downstream customers and has a close relationship with customers, which also increases market barriers; in recent years, around The work of establishing graphene standards is also in full swing. The successive introduction of standards will also play a strong role in promoting the rapid and healthy growth of the graphene industry.
4. Industrial clusters are gradually expanding
From the perspective of industrial agglomeration, most of the current domestic graphene companies are located along the eastern coast, especially in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Beijing and Tianjin Jilu agglomeration area. Among them, the Pearl River Delta region, with Shenzhen as the core, has the best graphene application market in the country, and has developed industrial clusters in many fields such as energy, new materials, electronic information, wearable devices, and electric vehicles.
The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Graphene Industry Alliance is also actively integrating the resources of the three places, accelerating the industrialization process of low-cost graphene and equipment technology, and forming a strategic emerging industry highland in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. The graphene industry in Shandong is mainly concentrated in Qingdao and Jining. After several years of development, Shandong Province has initially formed the prototype of an industrial chain from graphene raw materials, equipment to application fields.
As an early province in China that developed graphene, Jiangsu has formed a "1+1+4" industrial innovation pattern, that is, using the Jiangsu Graphene Industry Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance as the carrier of industry-university-research cooperation. With Jiangnan Graphene Research Institute and Jiangsu Institute of Industrial Technology Graphene Materials Research Institute as industrial innovation bases, an industrial innovation layout with graphene industry clusters connected vertically and horizontally has been formed in Changzhou, Wuxi, Taizhou and Nanjing.
Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province, as one of the earliest regions in China to carry out graphene R&D and industrialization, has significant first-mover advantages, a solid foundation and a good environment in graphene technological innovation and industrial development. There have been many breakthroughs in the preparation and application of graphene microsheets and graphene films, forming a full-chain development model.