Abstract:Wood activated carbon is an activated carbon product produced from renewable forest products "three residues" as raw materials, turning waste into treasure, effectively realizing the comprehensive recycling of forestry waste resources, making full use of forestry resources, saving coal energy, and promoting the development and utilization of forestry biomass resources, under the guidance of carbon neutrality goals, China's wood activated carbon market is developing rapidly, and the market size of China's wood activated carbon industry will reach 3.993 billion yuan in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 5.94%.
1. Definitions and Classification
Activated carbon is a kind of functional carbon material with strong adsorption capacity, according to the different raw materials for manufacturing, activated carbon can be divided into wood activated carbon, coal activated carbon and other raw material activated carbon, among them, wood activated carbon refers to the activated carbon products made of raw materials from the "three residues" of forest products, with low ash, high purity, strong adsorption capacity and other characteristics. According to the Industrial Classification of the National Economy (GB_T4754-2017) issued by the National Bureau of Statistics, the wood activated carbon industry belongs to the "C2663 Forest Products Chemical Products Manufacturing" under "C26 Chemical Raw Materials and Chemical Products Manufacturing".
Wood activated carbon products are widely used in all aspects of production and life such as sugar, monosodium glutamate, food and beverage, water treatment, chemical industry, etc., according to different downstream application fields, wood activated carbon products can be divided into activated carbon for sugar, activated carbon for monosodium glutamate, activated carbon for food, activated carbon for water treatment, activated carbon for chemical industry and other activated carbon.
Second, industry policies
1. Industry authorities and regulatory system
The competent authority of the wood activated carbon enterprise industry is the State Forestry Administration. The main responsibilities of the State Forestry Administration are: responsible for the supervision and management of national forestry and its ecological construction, forest resources protection, and forestry system nature reserves, formulating national forestry development plans, formulating policies for the optimal allocation of forestry resources, formulating national standards for forestry industry and supervising their implementation in accordance with relevant national regulations, and organizing and guiding the supervision of forest product quality. Wood activated carbon belongs to the back-end link of the forest products industry, the enterprise operates independently, the degree of marketization is high, and the government departments only implement macro management and policy guidance for the wood activated carbon industry. In addition, the downstream demand for activated carbon products is widely distributed, so the activated carbon industry is also subject to the supervision of the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Health, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the State Drug Administration and other departments, and the regulatory system is relatively complex.
The self-discipline industry management organization of the wood activated carbon industry is the activated carbon branch of the China Forest Products Industry Association, and its main responsibilities are: to formulate the rules and regulations of the industry, establish the industry self-discipline mechanism, and promote equal competition among enterprises; Assist relevant government departments in the management of the industry, participate in the formulation and revision of various standards in the industry, organize the implementation of industry standards, and promote industry quality management.
2. Industry-related policies
In recent years, relevant departments have issued a series of policies to support, encourage and guide the development of the wood activated carbon industry, such as: In July 2023, the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment issued the "Technical Guidelines for the Construction of Volatile Organic Compounds Treatment System by Dispersion Adsorption-Centralized Regeneration Activated Carbon Method in Zhejiang Province (Trial)", While guiding all localities to actively adopt activated carbon regeneration centers to improve the efficiency of VOCs treatment, they should actively change the long-term situation of incineration of waste activated carbon to increase carbon emissions. In December 2023, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Guiding Catalogue for Industrial Structure Adjustment (2024 Edition)" to eliminate "soil-based activated carbon and soil-based charcoal production with wood and root cutting as the main raw materials".
Third, the development process
China's wood activated carbon industry has experienced the development process from the start, initial development to scale expansion and technology upgrading, with the increasingly prominent environmental pollution problem, the demand for wood activated carbon is growing, China's wood activated carbon industry is also constantly improving and developing and growing, at present, China's wood activated carbon industry is gradually maturing, and the competition among enterprises is becoming increasingly fierce.
Fourth, industry barriers
1. Technology and talent barriers
There is no complete standardized production technology and production equipment in the wood activated carbon industry, each enterprise has its own characteristics, the technical level is very different, and the technological improvement and innovation of the enterprise mainly depends on the size of the enterprise's own research and development capabilities. Because the wood activated carbon in the production, refining, research and development process involved in a wide range of technical fields, including forest products chemical, applied chemistry, chemical engineering, thermodynamics, biochemistry, medicine and other multi-disciplinary, multi-professional, so activated carbon enterprises to produce high-quality, low-cost, multi-variety activated carbon products, in the increasingly fierce market competition to occupy an advantage, must develop and master a series of core technologies, such as continuous automatic production technology, comprehensive energy recovery and utilization technology, carbonization activation process control technology, Activated carbon new product development technology, etc. The mastery of these technologies requires activated carbon production enterprises to cultivate and have a group of experienced professionals, and the accumulation of technology and the reserve of talents usually take a long time, so technology and talents have become one of the important barriers to enter the wood activated carbon industry.
2. Qualification barriers
At present, in addition to being used in emerging applications such as oil and gas recovery, wood activated carbon is mainly used in food, beverage, medicine, drinking water purification and other edible and medicinal industries, these industries have industry access qualifications because they involve food hygiene or life and health. The above-mentioned production qualifications constitute a high barrier to entry.
3. Raw material supply barriers
The residues in the process of forestry felling, timber making, processing and so on are the most important raw materials for the production of wood activated carbon, and its sufficient and stable supply is an important guarantee to achieve continuous and stable production, due to the small unit value of the "three residues" of forest products, the supply is scattered, the wood activated carbon production enterprises must generally be close to the areas rich in forest resources, or close to the important forest distribution centers and wood processing areas, so as to ensure the supply of raw materials at a reasonable cost; At the same time, due to the great impact of wood quality on the quality of activated carbon products, wood activated carbon production enterprises also need to establish a number of stable suppliers and a set of raw material supply system suitable for their own development in the long-term procurement accumulation, which is difficult for new enterprises to break the current supply pattern and establish their own supply system. Therefore, the raw material supply channel is also one of the important barriers to enter the industry.
4. Scale barriers
The wood activated carbon industry belongs to the forest products chemical industry, although the investment scale is small compared with other chemical industries, but it still has the characteristics of economies of scale that the chemical industry generally has. With the continuous application of new processes and technologies, traditional small activated carbon production enterprises will face a dilemma, either invest huge amounts of money in technology research and development, new production equipment, and compete fiercely with other enterprises for market share; Either it is produced below economies of scale, the cost remains high, it is at a disadvantage in the competition, and it is eliminated by the market. At the same time, with China's increasing attention to environmental protection policies and increasingly stringent standards for the production and sales of forest products, the environmental protection costs of wood activated carbon production enterprises and the investment in product quality control have been increased. Judging from the development trend, due to the gradual increase in the requirements of various cost inputs, small enterprises that do not have scale and technological advantages will be gradually eliminated. Therefore, the scale of enterprise investment constitutes a barrier to entry into the industry.
Fifth, the industrial chain
1. Analysis of the industry chain
The upstream of the wood activated carbon industry is mainly the "three residues" of forest products, and the main excipients are chemical activators such as phosphoric acid, and the market supply is sufficient. In recent years, with the continuous growth of China's economy, the continuous improvement of people's living standards and the continuous improvement of environmental pollution control and food hygiene and safety awareness, the demand and scope of application of downstream industries will be continuously improved and expanded, bringing broad growth space for the development of the wood activated carbon industry.
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