Demand forecast of graphite in the field of new energy and new materials and the direction of industrial development

I. Prediction of graphite demand in the field of new energy and new materials
1.1 Sealing material demand for graphite
Expanded graphite maintains the excellent chemical properties of natural flake graphite and adds many unique mechanical properties. It is an ideal sealing material. The functional role of sealing materials determines the country's industrial sector that will be supported by key economic restructuring. With the development of China's automobile, petroleum , chemical and power industries, the graphite sealing industry will have broad development prospects. In 2010, the total output of the sealing industry was 70,000 tons. It is estimated that by 2015, the total output of China's sealing materials will reach 100,000 tons, and the average annual growth rate is equivalent to the growth rate of China's automobile production.

1.2 Brake material graphite demand outlook market for brake pad products
Demand growth is closely related to the development of the automotive industry. Statistics show that in 2010, China's friction materials industry produced 426,000 tons of friction materials per year, of which automotive friction materials accounted for about 80% of the total. With the rapid development of China's national economy, the rapid growth of the automobile industry in recent years and the sharp increase in demand in foreign markets, the friction material industry has also developed rapidly. It is estimated that by 2015, the total output of friction materials in China will reach 800,000. According to the growth rate of China's automobile industry by 7.8%, the total output of friction materials in China will reach 1.15 million tons by 2020, and the demand for graphite for brake cars will be 0.4% to 1.3%. It is estimated that consumption of graphite will be 0.5 to 16200 tons.

1.3 Lubrication and adsorption requirements for graphite
The good lubricity of graphite materials stems from the graphite crystal structure. Therefore, it is used to produce dry powder graphite lubricants, water-based graphite lubricants, oil graphite lubricants and other products. Some scholars have also studied the issue of the amount of graphite added to different lubricants. For example, in water-based graphite lubricants, the content of graphite particles is generally 20% to 40%. In the study of graphite adsorbent graphite content, different ratios are based on different raw materials, and the mixing ratio of graphite also shows a huge difference. There are many types of graphite lubricants and graphite adsorbents, and there is no detailed status and prediction data. Based on the development of brake and sealing materials, this study made a rough judgment on the demand for graphite in the future. It is estimated that by 2020, the demand for graphite for lubricants and adsorbents in China will be 55,000 tons and 31,000 tons.

1.4 Battery electrode needs for graphite
Conductivity of graphite is significantly better than other non-metallic materials, is the most widely used cathode material for lithium ion batteries. China's lithium-ion battery industry has developed rapidly in recent years. In 2013, the annual output of lithium-ion batteries in China has reached 4.768 billion. In recent years, as the consumer electronics market has become saturated, the growth in demand for lithium-ion batteries will continue to decline. In the field of electric vehicles, the lithium-ion battery market will enter a stage of rapid development. Therefore, the demand for graphite from battery electrodes will generally undergo a "V" shaped process. In the future, the rapid growth of lithium-ion battery market demand will mainly come from the field of transportation and industrial energy storage. Graphite consumption in the electronics market is declining after it is saturated. By 2020, graphite consumption in the electronics market is about 24,000 tons. The consumption in the transportation sector has grown rapidly. Based on the planned production capacity of new energy vehicles, it is estimated that the output of electric vehicles will reach 1.4 million by 2020, and the demand for graphite in the transportation sector will reach 65,000 (t Table 3).

1.5 Graphite industry demand analysis of natural graphite
Graphene is a two-dimensional material composed of a single layer of carbon atoms, the strength of which is the highest among the tested materials, more than 100 times that of steel; the carrier mobility is 10 times that of commercial silicon wafers; the thermal conductivity is 3 times the diamond . Graphene is a carbon material with broad application potential. It has broad application prospects in the fields of electronic devices, new energy, aerospace military, biomedicine, etc., and will become the next trillion-level emerging industry. The world's major countries are conducting cutting-edge research on graphene, but they are mostly in the initial stage of material research and development, and still have a long way to go from mass production applications. Scholars predict that graphene will first be used in electronic touch screens, and energy storage materials will be realized in recent years, but it can be used in high-frequency circuits and logic circuits in the future.
(1) Prospects for the development of graphene applications
Graphene has complete properties such as strong conductivity, light transmission, flexibility and microelectronics. It can be used as a sensing layer or a driving layer in a touch screen module. In 2015, the world's first graphene mobile phone was released in Chongqing. In 2014, the global market demand for transparent conductive films was about 40 million m ² . According to the agency's forecast, demand will double after 5 years and soar to 80 million m ² . Its largest market is the touch field, which is used in displays, tablets, smart phones and other products. Graphene has a very high specific surface area, which makes graphene a potential energy storage material. Graphene batteries have significant advantages over other products in terms of specific capacity, cost, and life. In 2015, graphene polymer batteries will be industrialized in Spain. Graphene battery anode materials have excellent specific capacity.
Professionals expect that by 2020, the market size of China's energy storage industry will reach at least 600 billion yuan. Graphene is expected to become an electrode material with great market potential. Graphene materials are effective in removing heavy metals, dyes and fluorides from water. Wu Yan et al. obtained an initial concentration of methylene blue of 100 mg/L and an optimum concentration of graphene adsorbent of 2 g/L. In 2012, China's industrial wastewater discharge was 22.16 billion tons. This indicates that graphene adsorbent materials also have great application prospects in the field of water treatment.
Scientists are investigating new applications for graphene, focusing on ultra-light materials, space cables, and graphene photodetectors.
(2) Judgment of the demand for natural graphite in the graphene industry
There are four main methods for preparing graphene. The raw materials of the mechanical stripping method, the epitaxial growth method, and the graphite oxide reduction method are natural graphite, and the raw material of the vapor deposition method is mostly methane. Resistive touch screen graphene material, the use of hydrogen, methane, and other raw materials to the graphite alkenyl grown on the catalytic metal surface. As an adsorbent material, different scholars have achieved good results in the application of graphene oxide and reductive graphene.
The bottleneck restricting the wide application of graphene is that it is difficult to prepare high-quality graphene on a large scale, low cost, and controllable. Now both redox and chemical deposition methods have realized the industrialization of graphene preparation, and the output has reached tons. However, for the huge demand of graphene in the future, which method can synthesize graphene on a large scale, low cost and controllable, will dominate the demand situation of natural graphite in the future.
With the deepening of research and development of graphene and the advancement of industrialization, dozens of graphene high-tech enterprises have emerged in China. Such as Haixinchi, Nanjing Corfu Nano, Shenzhen Beitray and so on. China's current graphene production line is put into operation in Changzhou, Taizhou, Zhejiang, Ningbo, Chongqing, Shandong, Ningxia, Jiangsu, etc. The production scale is between 30~300t, and the raw materials used are various. Jiangsu Sixth Element Company adopts graphite powder oxidation. The reduction, two-dimensional carbon company uses chemical vapor deposition such as methane, while Ningxia Pingluo uses silicon carbide to produce scraps as raw materials. It can be seen that the demand for natural graphite in the graphene industry will remain at the scale of 10,000 tons by 2020, and it is difficult to shake the consumption structure of natural graphite.

Two future Chinese demand for graphite pattern and direction of industrial development
2.1 The scale and pattern of China's graphite demand in the future
Based on the above analysis of the main sectors of graphite demand and the judgment of future trends, it is concluded that the demand for natural graphite in China will reach 1 million tons by 2020, an increase of 42.5% over 2010. Moreover, the uncertainty of the preparation method and application of graphene will have a huge impact on the demand of graphite (Fig. 4). In the case of uncertainty removed graphene development, by 2020 the amount of graphite refractory to 150,000 t, show a downward trend, accounting for 14.93%; with the gradual decline of steel demand for iron, graphite cast iron and steel Consumption is expected to be 550,000 tons, still the largest industry for consumption. The demand for graphite for sealing materials, friction materials, lubricants and adsorbents will maintain a rapid growth trend. By 2020, the consumption of graphite by various departments will be more than twice that of 2010. The consumption of graphite by the battery electrode also showed a rapid growth trend. The growth was mainly due to the increase in demand for graphite in electric vehicles in the future. The consumption of graphite for electric vehicles will be 46 times that of 2013.

2.2 China's future development direction of graphite
Scientific use and protection of natural graphite resources, development of deep processing technology and development of high-end products will be an inevitable choice. China's graphite development should be based on changes in the future demand pattern of graphite, and adjust the direction of development. From the perspective of the future consumption structure of graphite, the demand for graphite in the traditional field tends to be stable, the demand for graphite in the new energy and new materials field is growing strongly, and the graphene industry will bring huge uncertainty to the demand for graphite. With the development of technological innovation, in order to meet the demand for high-performance, specialized graphite materials in the field of new energy and new materials, the graphite industry should develop from the material level to the professional-grade products and the deep processing industry.
In the future, China's graphite demand will remain stable in traditional applications. In the high-tech field, it will become more and more widely used as a strategic emerging material. The market demand for graphite will continue to increase, and the strategic significance will become more prominent. In the future, there will be huge potential applications in new energy and new materials such as lithium ion batteries, sealing, braking, and lubrication. Although China is a big country with graphite resources, it should also have a strong sense of crisis and strategic awareness. We will adjust the product structure, encourage the development of high value-added products, promote the backward integration of the graphite industry chain, enhance the international competitiveness of China's graphite industry, and strive to make China a powerful country of graphite resources.

Three conclusions and discussion
In the current application field and technology of graphite, this research mainly needs the industrial sector demand of graphite in the traditional fields such as refractory materials, casting and other new energy and new materials such as sealing, braking materials, lubricants, adsorbents and battery electrodes. From the perspective of the future demand for graphite in these sectors, the main conclusions are:
(1) By 2020, the demand for graphite in China will reach 1 million tons, an increase of 42.5% over 2010.
(2) From the perspective of consumption pattern, the traditional field is still the main consumption field of graphite, but its proportion will gradually decrease; the consumption of graphite in new energy and new materials will grow rapidly, especially the growth of electric vehicles.
(3) Under the current technical conditions, the demand for natural graphite in graphene will remain at 10,000 tons, and it is difficult to change the existing natural graphite consumption pattern. The scale, process and raw material differences of China's major graphene production lines have weakened the demand for natural graphite in the graphene industry. Graphene as a material for energy storage and adsorption will largely rely on natural graphite, while touch screen utilization may use methane or the like as a raw material.
(4) Judging from the trend judgment of this paper, the future development of natural graphite production enterprises will be based on battery electrode anode materials, expanded graphite, flexible graphite and other sealing materials, as well as fluorinated graphite and isotropic graphite.
From the perspective of industrial demand, this study focuses on the demand for graphite in major traditional and new fields, while other graphite functional materials: conductive ink, antistatic rubber and plastic, radiation protection materials are not included in this study. scope of the study to be widened; pencil applications, lubrication, adsorption fields, due to the constraints of knowledge and literature, a number of parameters as provided in which the proportion of the adsorbent, the amount of lubricant consumption, natural graphite, graphene natural stone Further research and discussion are needed on the consumption intensity of ink and the unit demand of graphene in major application fields .

Author: Tim Gao 1, Chen Shen-2, 2 in Wen Jia, Shen Lei 1 (. 1 of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; 2 Global Mineral Resources Strategic Research Center, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing 100037)