False prosperity of the graphene industry
Lever Block,Lever Chain Hoist,Ratchet Lever Hoist,Ratchet Hoist Guangdong Gongyou Lift Slings Machinery CO.,LTD , https://www.gongyouslings.com
Since its inception in 2004, the number of patent applications for graphene technology has been on the rise, and the patent layout has become increasingly mature. In 2012, the number of patent applications for graphene in the world reached 1,829, an increase of 100% year-on-year.
While being favored by universities and research institutions, graphene has also received strong support from government policy funds. In 2013, the EU selected graphene into the future emerging flagship technology project, plans to invest 1 billion euros to build the graphene industry chain in the next decade; the Korean government invested 423,000 US dollars to establish the graphene alliance; China also invested 210 million yuan to promote the graphene industry Turn.
However, at present, the process of industrialization of graphene in China faces three challenges of lack of industrialization platform for research and development, lack of technology for high-end applications, and lack of market for low-end applications.
False prosperity of the graphene industry
Graphene has been sought after by the capital market since its birth, and is even considered to replace silicon materials, thus opening up a new era of microelectronics.
On the one hand, this is due to the superior performance of graphene itself, and on the other hand, the nature of capital gains. However, in fact, China's existing graphene industrialization is polarized, and low-end products such as functional coatings, composite materials, electrode materials and structurally enhanced materials, which are made of graphene powder, have been partially industrialized. However, the scale is small, the technical content and the added value are relatively low. High-end products made of graphene films, such as microelectronic materials and display film materials, are either in the laboratory stage or in the pilot stage, and cannot be industrialized in a short period of time.
At present, most of the graphene projects that can be mass-produced in China are not true graphene, but graphene powder, a kind of "graphene-like" which does not have excellent physical and chemical properties of graphene film, and does not have the best conductivity of the former. And thermal conductivity, the strongest strength and other characteristics, generally only used as additives in functional coatings, composite materials, heat sink materials, batteries and other fields.
Another real problem is that at this stage, graphene investment and returns are hardly proportional. The research and development costs, production costs, labor costs, and resource costs behind graphene industrialization are high.
For example, only Ningbo Moxi Technology can control the price of graphene powder at one yuan per gram, and a chemical vapor deposition method for producing graphene film can sell millions of instruments. For areas with small production values ​​such as composites, functional coatings, and structurally enhanced materials, if graphene is used, there may be a mismatch between investment and return.
The capital market over-expressed graphene as the key material to lead the third industrial revolution, but did not pay attention to or even intentionally avoid the low return on investment of graphene, which led to the exaggeration of the industrial status of graphene at this stage.
Three shortcomings of industrialization
The factors that restrict the industrialization of graphene in China mainly include three aspects:
First, the research and development results lack an industrial platform. At this stage, the research and development of China's graphene is mainly for universities and research institutions. The research and development focuses on basic science rather than practical technology. The main body of industrialization is enterprises, which emphasizes market application. There is a lack of cooperation and communication between universities, scientific research institutions and enterprises. Because of competition between enterprises and enterprises, it is impossible to promote the industrialization of graphene through cooperation. Therefore, between the research and development entities and the industrialization entities, as well as within the industrialization entities, The phenomenon of “self-production and self-sale†is closed, which leads to the slow industrialization of graphene, and the potential market demand cannot be fully exploited.
In the United States and South Korea, where the graphene industrialization process is developing rapidly, the main body of R&D and industrialization is enterprise-oriented. The R&D departments of each enterprise share technology through establishing alliances. The enterprise not only masters the core technology, but also understands the market demand. It can effectively promote the research and development process of graphene, the transformation process of research and development results and the industrialization process. China urgently needs to establish an industrialization conversion platform that connects R&D entities and industrialization entities, and promotes the transformation of R&D results into industrial applications.
Second, high-end applications lack technology. In fact, the application fields that can reflect the core value of graphene and create a trillion-level industrial chain are the semiconductor and microelectronics industries, which are high-end applications of graphene, and are also the most demanding process for graphene production, and can not achieve industrial production. field.
At present, China is able to overcome the bottleneck of high-end graphene industrial production and master the large-scale production technology of graphene. The first domestic 15-inch single-layer graphene prepared by the Chongqing Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the National Key Laboratory of Information Functional Materials of the Shanghai Institute of Microsystems of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the research and development results of the single-layer graphene prepared by chemical vapor deposition. Due to the immature production process, the production cost is high, and low-cost and large-scale production cannot be achieved.
Changzhou 2D Carbon Technology Co., Ltd. has launched the world's largest scale graphene transparent conductive film production line with an annual output of 30,000 square meters. It also failed to overcome the technical bottleneck of producing large-size single crystal graphene film and high chemical vapor phase. The production cost of the deposition method has led to a lack of enthusiasm for downstream producers. Target customers such as Huawei and ZTE generally hold a wait-and-see attitude, and have not officially applied graphene transparent conductive films to their industrial production, and thus cannot form a large-scale industrial chain.
Third, low-end applications lack market. For the low-end applications of graphene, the biggest bottleneck is still lack of market, and the slow development of downstream application market restricts the promotion and application of graphene.
At present, there is no application field that can realize the scale production of graphene. Taking graphene for power battery as an example, Ningbo built the world's first graphene production line with an annual output of 300 tons in 2012, and can realize the industrial production of high-capacity lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and high-performance lithium iron phosphate power batteries. However, due to the imperfect impact of the existing electric vehicles in China, such as the basic equipment, the industrial chain has not yet been fully marketized.
In addition, graphene heat sink parts are another application field with low technical threshold and good industrial prospects. However, since graphene is only a few atoms thick and cannot be used for heat dissipation of large devices, the downstream industrialization market can only be limited to tiny. In the device's thermal accessories. At this stage, an average of 400 kilograms of graphene producers can only sell 200 kilograms per year. The demand is mainly from universities and research institutions, and the purchase volume is mostly in grams, which is insufficient to support the industrialization of graphene.
High-end upgrade technology low-end application
The road to industrialization of graphene in China cannot be achieved overnight and needs to be gradually advanced. From a macro perspective, it is necessary to build an industrialization conversion platform for mutual promotion and cooperation in government, industry, research and research.
First, strengthen the construction of a cooperative innovation system for “government, industry, research and research†to enhance industrial innovation capability and core competitiveness. Introduce relevant policies to support the development of graphene industry, strengthen policy guidance, create a good development environment; integrate innovative resources such as universities and R&D institutions, strengthen technology research and development and personnel training, promote breakthroughs in key technologies of graphene; encourage enterprise innovation and strengthen The company cooperates closely with universities and scientific research institutions, establishes enterprise technology centers, builds a platform for cooperation between industry, universities and research institutes, and forms a technological innovation system that combines enterprises, research, and research.
The second is to encourage the local establishment of the graphene professional park, build a sound public service platform, play the role of the professional park in the industry-university-research cooperation, and then form an industrial incubation system to promote the industrialization of scientific research results.
In the specific deployment, on the one hand, the technology upgrade in the high-end application field is steadily carried out. It can advance from three directions, one is to promote the development of single-layer graphene film, realize the controllable micro-operation of high-purity and non-inclusion single-layer graphene, meet the R&D and industrial production requirements of downstream semiconductor and microelectronics industry, and promote The reform and upgrading of the semiconductor and microelectronics industries will provide research and development and industrial reserves for the upcoming “Moore Ageâ€.
Second, it is necessary to promote the research and development process of graphene film production equipment, reduce the production cost of chemical vapor production method, and break through the technical bottleneck to realize the continuous and large-scale production of graphene film.
The third is to establish a cooperation platform between the research and development main body and the industrialization main body in the film field, and steadily advance the research and development process of the graphene transparent conductive film required by downstream manufacturers, break through the production bottleneck of large-sized graphene film, and mobilize downstream manufacturers to promote graphite. The enthusiasm of the industrialization of olefin films.
On the other hand, it is reasonable to accelerate the marketization process in the low-end application field. In the field of graphene electrodes, it is necessary to expand the market, and the key point is to break through the bottleneck of graphene electrode production required by downstream manufacturers and accelerate the industrialization of key products. Improve the market awareness and acceptance of electric vehicles and electric buses, establish and improve the supporting facilities of electric vehicles, and build a smooth and smooth industrial channel of graphene powder-graphene electrode-super capacitor (or lithium ion battery) .
At the same time, the application of graphene powder should be re-planned. Rationally plan the existing production capacity and development path, avoid dull development of carbon fiber and rare earth industries, overcapacity, and eliminate the backward “three-step†old road.
It is necessary to further accelerate the industrialization process of graphene powder, accelerate the transformation speed of related enterprises from pilot to industrial production, eliminate small-scale small workshop-style production processes, form large-scale production, further reduce production costs, and form price advantages. Stimulate the buying and application desires of downstream companies.
For functional coatings, heat-dissipating materials, composite materials and other fields to be upgraded. It is necessary to strengthen cooperation with scientific research institutions and universities, speed up the process of technology upgrading, overcome the obstacles of low return on investment, build cooperation bridges between manufacturers, downstream manufacturers and R&D institutions, focus on key products, improve key product industry chains, and stimulate key products. Market demand, accelerate the industrialization process of key products, and strive to create a market-oriented industrial chain of graphene.