With the arrival of the low-carbon economy, the traditional materials and processes have been unable to meet the development requirements, energy saving and environmental protection, lightweight, 3D printing is becoming more and more a hot spot for plastics companies, the new materials will inevitably become the direction of the development of plastics companies, from the point of view of the development trend of the plastics industry, these three directions will become the focus of the future direction of the development of plastics companies.
The first direction: environmental protection plastics came into being
In terms of China's current plastics industry, the development of renewable energy industry is one of the important elements of China's development of circular economy industry. By the environmental protection efforts continue to increase, the state's attention to environmental protection and recycling industry gradually increased, which plastic as a "white pollution" as the main source of its renewable environmental protection is more environmental protection by many people concerned about.
At present, biodegradable plastics, high-tech functional new materials and recycling of waste plastics as environmentally friendly plastic products are becoming a hotspot for research and development in the world, in which the development of biodegradable plastics has been particularly rapid, and has also enabled plastics manufacturers to recognize the huge business opportunities in the biodegradable plastics market.
DuPont, Cargill, BASF and other well-known chemical manufacturers continue to enter this market through mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures. As one of the most important suppliers of biodegradable plastics in the world, China accounts for about 20% of the global production capacity. 2009~2013, the average annual growth rate of China's biodegradable plastics production capacity was more than 21%, and the production capacity will continue to increase as a number of companies embark on biodegradable plastics projects for new construction or expansion of production.
The main target markets for biodegradable plastics are plastic packaging films, agricultural films, disposable plastic bags and disposable plastic tableware. Compared with traditional plastic packaging materials, the new degradable materials cost a little higher. However, with the increase of environmental protection consciousness, people are willing to use the new degradable materials with slightly higher price to protect the environment, and the increase of environmental protection consciousness brings great development opportunities to the new biodegradable materials industry.
Jinfa Science and Technology is a leading enterprise in the field of modified plastics in China. In recent years, Jinfa has been vigorously developing its new material business, which has gradually entered the harvest period. In terms of biodegradable plastics, in 2014, Jinfa has 30,000 tons of fully biodegradable bioplastics production capacity, and has obtained relevant certifications from the European Union, the United States and other relevant certificates, becoming the second largest supplier in the European market.
In 2014, most of Jinfa's biodegradable products were exported to the European and American markets, and only 10% were supplied to the domestic market. But this situation will change, and there is a strong supporting force from the government behind this change.
Jinfa's founder and chairman Yuan Zhimin, as a deputy to the National People's Congress, has been vigorously calling for the promotion of biodegradable plastics. For two consecutive years, he has submitted a motion on biodegradable plastics at the National People's Congress, hoping to help solve China's worsening white pollution problem.
As a state-owned enterprise under the Xinjiang Construction Corps, Xinjiang Tianye Group uses Jinfa's PBSA material to produce agricultural films. The company said it used more than 800 tons of agricultural film in its 2014 pilot use of 140,000 mu of farmland in Xinjiang. Based on that formula, the program will need to use about 5,700 tons of PBSA film in 2015 and about 35,000 tons by 2016.
In addition to aggressively expanding the market penetration of PBSA film, Goldfarb hopes that the government will take incentives to provide price subsidies so that biodegradable agricultural film is affordable to a wide range of farmers.
Currently, Jinfa's fully biodegradable plastic agricultural films have begun to be experimented and promoted in many provinces, including Xinjiang, Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Yunnan and Guizhou. In the next few years, as the problem of "white pollution" in agriculture becomes more and more prominent, land safety and food security will be put in a more urgent position, and the market demand and usage of fully biodegradable plastic agricultural land film will also be likely to see a breakthrough growth.
At present, China's biodegradable plastics producers mainly include Huali Environmental Protection, Jinfa Science and Technology, Tianjin Danhai, Shandong Huiying, Rainbow Precision and so on, and the capacity of these five enterprises accounts for about 40% of the country's total production capacity.
Of course, degraded plastics are still lacking in some performance aspects, and it is impossible to replace all the petrochemical ordinary plastic products in some areas of application. For the market space of degradable plastics, experts feel that degradable plastics applied to garbage bags, mulch, shopping bags and other scales of the prospects than good, and according to conservative estimates, the future of China will have 3 million tons of demand. Therefore, alone is the Chinese market has tens of billions of market space.
China is the global production and consumption of plastic products, biodegradable plastics research and development, production and application of sustainable development of the plastics industry is of great significance.
The second direction: automotive plastics future is promising
It is reported that in China's existing land, the number of cars owned just behind the United States, is now more than 100 million, ranking firmly in the world's second place. At the same time, China is also the world's automobile industry manufacturing power, according to statistics, the annual production of various types of cars amounted to more than 18 million.
As we all know, from the point of view of energy saving and emission reduction, under the premise of maintaining the necessary performance of the car, try to reduce the weight of the car is the most effective way, and as far as possible to use plastics as the symbol of the polymer material is to realize the most effective and powerful way of automobile weight reduction.
Although China's automobile manufacturing industry to use the overall level of plastic materials has not yet reached the world's leading degree, but whether it is a passenger car or freight car each year, the absolute number of various plastic materials required are in the millions of tons, accounting for about one-tenth of the country's annual output of various plastics, and more than the agricultural, construction, packaging and other categories of plastic products, their products Economic benefits are among the top.
In terms of cost, plastic auto parts than traditional metal parts have a cost advantage, although the unit of metal materials such as the price is higher than the car with plastic, and then the more feasible, can greatly reduce the processing, assembly, and other late costs, in addition, with the future use of high-performance plastics in the automotive field of the area, the price is bound to fall further.
San Francisco-based Grand View
Research said in a new research report that the automotive plastics market is expected to reach $53 billion by 2022, thanks to growing demand for driveline and interior/exterior applications.
This shows that the automotive plastics market outlook is quite broad, which has become a hot area of concern for many plastics companies.
Domestic automotive modified plastics leading enterprises in the field of automotive materials focused on Pratt, 95% of its modified plastics used in the automotive field, mainly divided into modified polyolefin, modified ABS, plastic alloys, and other categories, raw materials, including PP, ABS, PC and other synthetic resins, accounting for more than 80% of the cost of the main business.
Pulit's automotive modified plastic products are at the leading level in China, and have reached the advanced level of similar products abroad. Pulit's downstream customers cover a wide range of well-known automobile brands, including FAW-Volkswagen, Shanghai Volkswagen, Changan Ford, Shanghai General Motors, Great Wall and BMW.
Pulit's main competitor is Jinfa Science and Technology, and Jinfa Science and Technology was founded at the beginning of the production of modified plastics for home appliances, in the context of the wave of automobile localization began to cut into the field of modified plastics for automotive use, at the technical level - Pulit is better than Jinfa Science and Technology.
Pulit spares no effort to expand the mid-end automotive composites market, in the face of 26 billion of mid-end and high-end market, Pulit continues to increase investment in R & D and sales, to improve the production line of liquid crystal polymer materials (LCP) in order to expand the market, and at the same time in the expansion of the production capacity of the long glass fiber reinforced materials (LGF) capacity, the current 10,000 tons of production capacity, the main supply for BMW in Germany.
Currently, Pratt has 50,000 tons, 100,000 tons, and 30,000 tons of modified plastics production capacity in Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Chongqing, respectively, *** counting 180,000 tons, and with the release of the capacity of the Chongqing Pratt Company, it is expected that in 17 years, Pratt's production capacity will reach 250,000 tons.
In addition to Pratt, the huge number of automotive plastics and the considerable economic benefits to attract more and more enterprises have to devote themselves to it, which led to fierce competition in the sales market. At present, China's main producers in the field of automotive plastics are Pratt, Jinfa Science and Technology, Silverhill Technology, Hefei Jieshijie, CGNJuner, Jinhu Riili, Shanghai Rizhisheng and so on.
Plastics, as a new type of component material, can not only reduce the weight of the car, thereby reducing fuel consumption and reducing emissions, but also significantly reduce the purchase cost, improve the car's power and enhance its safety, and ultimately make the car in the two aspects of safety and cost to show better performance. Undoubtedly, the application of plastics in the automobile will be more and more broad prospects.
The American Chemistry Council's (ACC) Plastics Division's newly released automotive plastics planning blueprint says there is a need to demonstrate more of the capabilities of plastics and polymer composites to expand the use of these materials in automotive applications. With the continuous improvement of people's living standards, the automotive industry is bound to develop rapidly, which gives the automotive plastics a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have a good market outlook, the enterprise R & D side of the need to work harder, and continue to develop the potential of the plastic raw materials, so that the automotive plastics have more competitive advantages, so that the automotive plastics market continues to grow and develop.
The third direction: 3D printing materials are full of fantasies
The authoritative report of the 3D industry said that the average annual growth rate of the 3D printing market over the past three years is 27.4%, and the 3D printing market scale is expected to reach 6 billion U.S. dollars in 2019. Among them, the market share of applications in healthcare accounted for 15.1%, and it is expected that the market can reach 1.9 billion U.S. dollars in 2025, which is equivalent to more than 10 billion yuan.
In fact, the 3D printing industry to develop, in addition to the 3D printer itself, hardware and software, to determine the other core elements of this industry is the material science and technology. 3D printing materials research and development and breakthroughs is the basis for the promotion and application of 3D printing technology, but also to meet the fundamental guarantee of printing.
SmarTech, a leading global consulting firm, recently issued a "forecast for the application of plastics in the 3D printing market over the next 10 years," which evaluates newer types of plastic materials, including polycarbonate, polystyrene, TPU, PET, PBA, polyvinyl alcohol, polyformaldehyde, and alternative bio-plastics, transparent and flexible materials, as well as nano-enhanced plastics. The report notes that plastics will be a competitive advantage for 3D printing companies.
The global 3D printing materials market is projected to reach an estimated $2.5 billion in revenue by 2018, and is expected to grow to $6.8 billion by 2022, according to a recent report by market researcher Smartech. The fast-growing market size has also allowed some companies to smell the business opportunities and move from testing the waters to formally entering the field.
Yinxi Technology has been producing 3D printing consumables since 2012, and began to realize mass production of some products in 2014. The company's Zhongshan Connaught offers a range of 3D printing consumables, including ABS wires, PLA polylactic acid wires, polyamide PA powder composites and PVA water-soluble support materials.
Yinxi Technology is currently developing ABS, PLA wire has realized a small batch of external sales; PVA wire and PA powder is currently in the pilot stage. Future plans to dock the network technology innovation 3D printing services, the company intends to use the non-public offering of shares to raise funds to build 3D industrialization R & D center, explore the information network technology innovation 3D printing services, the construction of the integrated industrial Internet service platform used to open up the vertical intelligent manufacturing channel and horizontal value chain channel.
Yinxi Technology's 3D printing materials research and development is to Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Professor Shi Yusheng as the team leader of the innovative scientific research team. The company's chairman, Tan Songbin, said that in 2015 there are probably more than 20 to 30 million dollars of research and development investment for 3D printing. Although in the field of 3D printing is currently not profitable for Silverhill Technology, the future payback period of about 3-5 years, but as the chairman of Silverhill Technology said, "This is an industry full of fantasy, once the industry explodes growth, immeasurable, particles are also possible."
The next decade: what 3D printing can bring to the plastics industry?SmarTech's report also says that three types of plastics
ABS, PLA, and nylon will continue to hold the largest share of the 3D printing materials market over the next 10 years. Market demand for these materials is expected to reach 13,000 tons by 2019.
ABS and PLA continue to meet the needs of business enthusiasts of 3D printing and will present strong opportunities for the personal 3D printing market. More durable polymers such as TPU, polycarbonate and nylon industry will win more market share in the next decade. The use of new materials in 3D printing that can help professionals achieve different properties for their products, provide lighter weight and better performing part materials, reduce secondary mounting procedures, and even make customized medical implants and dental solutions possible, will bring more value to the relevant market segments.
But currently, device manufacturers control the supply chain for 3D printing materials, which reduces the competitive opportunities for large materials companies. However, some materials companies are partnering with smaller equipment manufacturers or even developing their own 3D printing equipment. Some companies like CRP Technologies and DSM
Somos is looking for business opportunities by developing specialty materials for automotive and dental applications.
Currently, there are many 3D printing material companies in China, but China's 3D printing field at present, China has not formed a 3D printing material system, the existing materials are far from being able to meet the needs of 3D printing. 3D printing materials are generally less varied, low performance, high price problems, unable to meet the needs of the development of 3D printing technology, and the domestic 3D printing material problem is more prominent. Therefore, the development of more diverse high-performance 3D printing materials with independent intellectual property rights is a key factor in the development of this technology.
Related materials recommended: Prospect Industry Research Institute "2016-2021 China General Plastics Industry Market Demand and Investment Planning Analysis Report"