Big breakthrough! Japan’s Toray announces the development of new TORAYC™ T1200 carbon fiber product

On October 30, Japan’s Toray Industries,
Inc.) announced that it has developed TORAYCA™ T1200, a new carbon fiber product. It is reported that this is currently the strongest carbon fiber in the world. It was developed by Toray at its new factory in Masaki Town, Ehime Prefecture, and can meet the needs of all fields from sports and leisure to aerospace.

As we all know, the strength of carbon fiber is greatly affected by its internal defects, which are mainly determined by the fiber matrix and production processes such as pre-oxidation, carbonization, and post-processing. Accordingly, Toray started by improving its proprietary nanoscale structure control technology to design and realize the high-toughness internal structure of carbon fiber. Leveraging this technology, Toray introduces TORAYCA™
T1200 new product.

In terms of performance, ORAYCA™
T1200 is a 12K small tow product with a tensile strength of 8.0 Giga Pascal (or GPa, approximately 100 kilograms of force per square millimeter). From the data in the table, it can be found that the tensile strength of the new product is higher than that of TORAYCA™
T1100’s 7.0GPa is more than 10% higher, which is currently the highest tensile strength. In addition, the tensile modulus is higher than T800S and lower than T1100, and the density is slightly heavier than T1100.

From the perspective of research and development history, Toray first started selling carbon fiber in 1971, and developed TORAYCA™ T1000 product as early as 1986, which became the strongest carbon fiber in the world at that time. In recent years, Toray has successfully commercialized TORAYCA™ T1100. Further enhance product competitiveness. According to Toray, it will continue to work on improving the performance and supply of TORAYCA™ carbon fiber.

As the highest performance carbon fiber material at present, T1000 grade and above carbon fiber has very high strength and stiffness, which can meet the needs of structural applications in harsh environments. It is widely used in aerospace, automobiles, sports equipment and other fields.

In this field, although my country’s carbon fiber output has achieved leapfrog development in recent years, there is still a certain gap in ultra-high-end products.

According to incomplete statistics, my country’s carbon fiber production capacity will reach 112,000 tons in 2022, accounting for nearly 1/3 of the world. However, most of the production capacity is mainly in the T300 and T700 grades. There are not many stable shipments of high-end T800 grade products. Ultra-high-strength carbon fibers above T1000 have been dominated by leading overseas companies for a long time.

However, entering 2023, many domestic carbon fiber head companies have officially announced the latest mass production progress. So far, many companies have announced that they can achieve production. Although there is still a certain distance from stable large-scale production, there is hope in the future.

Jiangsu Hengshen: In May 2016, it announced the realization of engineering production of T1000 carbon fiber HF50.

Zhongfu Shenying: In February 2018, it announced that the first independently developed 100-ton T1000 carbon fiber production/verification line was built in Lianyungang, with the model of 12K small tow SYT65.

Zhongjian Technology: In June 2023, it announced that it was building three 200-ton 6K carbon fiber production lines, including T1000 and T1100 dedicated lines, model ZT9H.

Changsheng Technology: In August 2023, it was announced that the domestic ZA60XC (T1000 level) PAN carbon fiber kiloton industrial production technology jointly researched by Shenzhen University passed the technical appraisal.

Guangwei Composite Materials: In October 2023, it was announced that T1000-grade QZ6026 and M40J-grade carbon fibers have achieved engineering technology and mass production.