TECHNOLOGY | CONDUCTIVE PLASTICS
Right: Carbon nanotubes will be critical in development of fast charging EV batteries, says Nanocyl
The likelihood is that, unless something truly
radical happens in production and handling technologies, CNTs will remain as relatively niche products. In fact, the same un-named company executive said that we have likely reached a point of equilibrium in the markets for various carbon blacks and other conductive additives and carbon nanotubes. That said, there is still a lot of CNT activity to report on. “Carbon nanotubes stand, in terms of conductiv-
ity, on top of the pyramid of carbons,” says Laurent Kosbach, CEO of Belgian producer Nanocyl. “For example, they are the additives that will be re- quired for fast charging EV batteries.” The company has been supplying multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) for some 15 years and currently has a capacity for its NC7000 product of 460 tonnes/ year.
“Interestingly, though, what we have seen is a
Below: LG Chem’s 400 tonne/year carbon nanotube production plant at Yeosu, South Korea. The company is mulling further capacity expansions
growing approach for synergies between all materials,” Kosbach says. “Researchers and applications developers have more materials to combine. The right recipe takes time to fine tune but [our experience] in automotive, electronics, energy, industrial and composite industries confirms that route. With this growing presence and increasing market demand it is not surprising that we will have in the coming years to consider plans to add additional capacities.” Nanocyl has more than 15 highly diverse industrial applications, according to CTO Michael Claes. “NC7000-based electronic packaging – in- jection mouldings or thermoformed sheet prod- ucts – have become a standard in the industry thanks for their very low outgassing factor togeth- er with low particle count and high electrical and mechanical robustness and their cleanroom certification,” Claes says. In automotive, NC7000-based thermoplastic compounds are said to be widely used either for
their capability to enable painting or plating at low loading without primer or pre-treatment or for their high chemical resistance and oligomer wash-out resistance in fuel system applications. “Those systems are vastly replacing metallic or carbon black based elements,” Claes claims.
Preparing for growth Other MWCNT suppliers are also said to be mulling more product capacity. According to a recent Korean news organisation report, LG Chem is considering expanding a new CNT manufactur- ing facility in Korea that has not yet reached full capacity in response to expected future demand for batteries for EVs and portable electronics. LG estimates that some 80% of global CNT output will go to make rechargeable Li-ion batteries, mostly for electric vehicles (EVs), by 2020. LG’s 400 tonne/yr capacity plant started up in
early 2017 and is only likely to become fully operational later this year. This potentially puts the company in the leading ranks of CNT producers, among companies like Showa Denko (whose main focus appears to be on lithium-ion batteries) and C-Nano, which both manufacture in the Far East, and Nanocyl, Hyperion Catalysis and Arkema, who produce their products in the Europe and North America. Between them sits OCSiAl, which is headquartered in Luxembourg but produces in Russia – and concentrates on single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). Among these producers, Hyperion has one of the longest application histories in conductive thermoplastics, having started the ball rolling many years ago with the supply of masterbatches based on its MWCNTs (it calls them Fibrils) to GE Plastics (now SABIC) for its Noryl GTX polyamide/polyphe- nylene ether blend for on-line paintable automobile exterior panels. However, the company does not comment on its current capacity or applications.
44 COMPOUNDING WORLD | February 2018
�
www.compoundingworld.com
PHOTO: LG CHEM
PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76