Composite materials: Led by science & technology toward industrial sophistication Engineering plastics: Dedicated transformation toward better product-support

–Report of 2013 International Advanced Materials Summit

By Hu Qin

Today, new chemical materials – composite materials and engineering plastics – have already developed to an advantageous scale in China while the composite materials sector is wrestling with issues of developing more sophistication, and the engineering plastics sector needs to provide more "dedicated" and customer-oriented services. The pace of industrial restructuring will be much faster than expected, transformation and upgrading are just around the corner.

Composite material: Led by design, integrating structure and function

Along with the growing popularity of composite-material products and increased demand, direct consumers are raising their technical requirements. Du Shanyi, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chairman of the Chinese Society for Composite Materials mentioned in his report that composite materials have become important in the fields of modern national defense and aerospace owing to their advantages such as substantially lower weight, ease of tailoring, decreased life-cycle costs and advantages when used as structural components. In the future, composite materials will continue to play a greater role in aerospace, marine vessels, transportation, infrastructure, energy and other areas.
He indicated that "high performance, low cost and high reliability" are the eternal goals for technical development of materials and structures. To win priority for application and substitution, advanced composite materials must meet the following requirements: light structure, ability to serve under extreme conditions, integration of structure and function. Low-cost techniques like non-autoclave processes and liquid molding are playing increasingly important roles and have become crucial for reducing the costs of composite materials. For example, Boeing 787 has set a precedent for comprehensive manufacture of airframe components.
New composite materials have great potential in light quality, high strength, high rigidness and multifunction. Opportunities and challenges brought by development of composite materials in the future will be reflected on nano-composite materials, ultra-light dot matrix materials, topology optimization materials and smart materials etc.
Dr. Wu Dongyang, vice president of Boeing Research & Technology China, the bellwether in the application of high-performance composite materials, discussed the requirements for composite materials in developing aircraft. She said that the main challenges for the sustained development of the aviation industry in flight safety, and aircraft maintenance, along with airspace restrictions and environmental factors, including noise, carbon dioxide emissions and energy conservation. Composite material is a key technology for the development of the aviation industry mainly because of its light weight.
She mentioned that in the coming 20 years the civil aircraft market of China will require 5 260 new aircrafts valued at US$670 billion. During that period, the weight of fuselage structures must be reduced continuously, which requires a more balanced combination of materials and the more efficient production to decrease manufacturing costs. Future aircraft materials and structures will have higher requirements for multifunctional materials integrating electricity, thermal insulation and sound isolation, and will actualize multi-scale modeling and simulation for the structural properties of materials. Innovative structures taking on improved performance will be the focus in aircraft applications, which will achieve automated random combination as well.

High performance fiber: Guided by "technology."

As important composite materials, high-performance fibers have always been the focus of attention in the new materials industry. "Following T800 and T1000, even stronger carbon fibers with high modulus including HS, M65J and others have been fully appreciated and developed," said by Du Shanyi.
Xiao Jianwen, vice chief engineer of the research institute of Jilin Petrochemical Company of China Petroleum discussed the application and development of PAN-based carbon fiber technology and emphasized the trends for PAN-based carbon fiber technology. He believes that innovation for this process lies in improvement on pure polymerization technologies for acrylonitrile, getting better control of macromolecules' molecular weight and its distribution, so that the performance of carbon fibers can be greatly improved.
Dr. Chen Xin, director of the electrical engineering new material and microelectronics department of State Grid talked about the carbon fiber composite core wire (ACCC). A brand new wire for overhead electric power transmission, ACCC is a single core rod with carbon fiber as the core, coated by glass fiber, whose application in the grid of our country will further the pursuance of the perennial goals of the grid, including reliability, safety, economical, efficient and environment-friendly. After years of technical research and experience accumulation, scientific research units that serve directly under the corporation represented by Smart Grid Institute of State Grid of China Electric Power Research Institute have completely mastered key technologies for ACCC and achieved its manufacture and a number of engineering applications. Almost 20 manufacturers already make ACCC.
Application of aramid fiber is one of the hottest fields. Ma Qianli, deputy general manager of Yantai Taihe New Materials Co., Ltd commented on the domestic technical progress of engineering for aramid fiber and the future trends. He declared that production techniques for China-made metaposition aramid fiber have reached the world advanced level, having formed a production scale of 10 000 tons, ranking second in the world; with a complete product structure and preliminary industrial clustering; taking on international competitiveness based on a global marketing network. Thousand-ton industrialization of China-made metaposition aramid fiber has achieved technology breakthroughs on, attaining mass production for basic-type fiber; mechanical properties of the fiber could meet the indicators of basic-type products abroad, taking on availability. Technology breakthroughs have been made for engineering aramid fiber III, where a capacity for batch production at the 100 ton level has been formed to initially meet the basic needs of national defense.
Zhou Hong, director of the Quartermaster Equipment Institute of the General Logistics Department highlighted research on the preparation and application of domestic para-aramid fibers. In China, the manufacture of para-aramid began in the 1960s and rose in the 2010s. a breakthrough has been made for key technologies for customization of domestic para-aramid fiber so that applications could be realized in fibers for bulletproof gear of military personnel, automotive hoses and large industrial belts. The development of bulletproof composite material resin reinforced by domestic para-aramid fiber is focused on bulletproof performance, environmental protection and prepreg processing technology committed to balancing bulletproof performance and structural rigidity.

Engineering plastics: Turning toward "service," transformation is imminent.

Zheng Kai, director of China Synthetic Resin Association presented the following data: domestic output of synthetic resin was 52.133 million tons in 2012, rising for 5.5%; apparent consumption was 79.743 million tons with an annual increase of 4.9%. Annual output of plastic products was 57.8186 million tons in 2012 with an increase of 8.99%YoY, but dropping 13.36% compared to 2011. In 2012, the output of films (including 1.63 million tons of agricultural film, 3.12 million tons of BOPP film, 0.1 million tons of BOPA film and 0.56 million tons of CPP film) was 9.7 million tons; the output of foam plastics was 1.72 million tons; the output of artificial leathers and synthetic leathers was 3.14 million tons in total; the output of commodity plastics was 4.62 million tons; the output of plastic pipe (including pipe and fittings) was about 11 million tons; the output of other plastic products was over 27 million tons. It is worth mentioning that the modified plastics and high-end processing industry gained significantly increased profits, which was mainly due to relatively low raw material prices.
Zheng Kai believes that "surplus quantity with inadequate quality" is a prevalent drawback of the modified plastics industry in China. Low technical content and serious homogeneity result in a low level of operating rate, poor profitability and even vicious price competition in parts of the market. He suggested that attention should be paid by the high-performance plastics industry to the following technologies: reinforcement of long glass fibers, reinforcement of single resin, structural foaming, reinforcement of continuous fiber, modification of cross blended multi-components and 3D printing.
Flame retardants are indispensable, and demand for them grows continually. Dr. Han Songqing from China Flame Retardant Society said that the international community is vigorously promoting environment-friendly flame retardants. However, some organizations exaggerate the environmental harm of some flame retardants such as brominated flame retardants, based on some one-sided experimental results, while ignoring the enormous damage of fire itself to ecological environment, which is a typical tactic of putting the cart before the horse. "Halogen-free" does not mean "green," and eco-labels do not necessarily show environment-friendly features of the product either. Environmental protection in the real sense must involve low carbon emissions and recyclability. Polymeric and reactive flame retardants are the development direction of environment-friendly flame retardants.
The effects of the plastics processing industry in driving the development of new materials are gradually drawing people's attention. Li Jian - deputy secretary-general of China Light Industry Machinery Association and deputy director of the National Rubber & Plastics Machinery Standardization Technical Committee said that China's plastics machinery industry is now experiencing changes in the market from focusing only on the machine itself toward recognizing market demand; from imitation and copying toward "user design;" from taking equipment parameters as the measurement toward customized solutions for users; from common toward dedicated; from "production-oriented" toward "service-oriented " manufacturing; from domination by state-owned enterprises toward domination by private enterprises.
Nowadays, it is hard for domestic plastics machinery to deal with high-end demands from industries including foodstuffs, medicines, medical services, military goods, optics, aerospace goods, transportation infrastructure, chemicals, arctic marine equipment, communications and electronics.