Cordenka and Stora Enso to jointly develop precursors for biobased carbon fiber
Type of post: NEWS IN BRIEF.
Cordenka
(largest producer of industrial rayon in the world) and Stora Enso have signed an agreement to
jointly develop precursors for biobased carbon fiber. The co-development is
driven by the need for high performance carbon fiber in transportation,
construction and power generation.
Press release: “Stora Enso and Cordenka partner to
develop bio-based carbon fiber materials”, 6/5/2020.
Related post: “Stora
Enso to build a pilot facility for producing biobased carbon materials for
energy storage”, 22/7/2019.
Figure 1. Cordenka and Stora Enso to jointly
develop precursors for biobased carbon fiber (taken from the press release)
Stora Enso has been developing the technology
for manufacturing carbon fiber from wood-based raw materials (dissolving pulp
and lignin) at laboratory scale. The agreement aims at upscaling the precursor
development process to pilot-scale operation. The precursor development is
carried out with specialised manufacturing spinning equipment at Cordenka’s
Obernburg production site in Germany. The venture is supported by BMC, owner of
Cordenka, as part of their strategy to extend the reach of Cordenka into new
growth markets and Asia.
Carbon fiber demand is increasing steadily at
an annual growth rate of 10%. The target of the partnership will be on
developing carbon fiber initially for industrial applications requiring low
weight and high mechanical performance, such as pultruded laminates used in
manufacturing wind energy rotor blades. Today, 20% of the global carbon fiber
supply is used by the wind energy industry.
Currently, carbon fiber is made from PAN
(polyacrylonitrile) which is an oil-based raw material. The raw materials for
biobased carbon fiber are cellulose and lignin. In the manufacturing process,
cellulose is converted to viscose and mixed with lignin to form the spinning
dope. The dope is spun into precursor fiber that is thermally converted to
carbon fiber.
