When it comes to new materials, many people may only have a vague abstract concept, but they cannot describe exactly what a new material is. The 22nd China International Industry Fair (hereinafter referred to as the "Ciie Expo") closed in Shanghai on September 19, and the New Materials Pavilion told the audience that everything that comes into contact with life can be new materials. The interior and exterior of high-speed rail, the electric assembly of automobiles, battery packs and other components, the circuit boards of 5G communication, the paint and tile backing adhesive of houses... Everywhere in life that is visible or invisible to the naked eye, there are new materials everywhere.
According to the data of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, China's material output value has reached 4.5 trillion yuan in 2019, but behind the huge industrial scale, another reality is that China still relies on imports of materials in a variety of high-end fields, has not yet broken through the technology monopoly, or has not achieved large-scale production.
This is both a dilemma and an opportunity.
A gap that cannot be ignored
"At present, China has more than 50 key materials in the fields of semiconductors, displays, biomedical treatment, new energy and other fields that are highly dependent on imports." At the New Materials Industry Development Summit Forum of this year's Industry Fair, Peng Shou, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, chief engineer of China National Building Materials Group Co., Ltd., secretary of the party committee and chairman of Kaisheng Technology Group Co., Ltd., pointed out this grim reality.
Electronic manufacturing functional ceramics, new energy materials, functional textile materials, functional cleaning materials, biological application materials, advanced semiconductor materials, rare earth materials, high-performance membrane materials, new display materials, superconducting materials...... All belong to the category of advanced functional materials, these new materials are indispensable in daily production or high-end field manufacturing, but at present, there are still many types of new materials in China, and there is a certain gap with the international level.
After a comparative analysis of 26 types of representative manufacturing industries, the Chinese Academy of Engineering believes that at present, there are 11 types of manufacturing industries in China that have reached the world's leading or advanced level, such as communication equipment, advanced rail transit equipment, power transmission and transformation equipment, textiles, home appliances, etc. However, there are still large or even huge gaps between 15 types of manufacturing industries and world manufacturing powers, such as integrated circuits and special equipment, operating systems and industrial software, intelligent manufacturing core information equipment, aero engines, agricultural equipment, etc.
Peng Shou took the chip field as an example, "In these fields, the technical gap of new materials is huge, such as the chip of integrated circuits has a very large impact on the industry, in fact, we were ready to start, but at that time we thought that we could take money to buy, thinking that there was a global industrial chain and supply chain, and did not think that it must be integrated development, so there is a huge gap in this piece." ”
Guan Ketian, chief technical engineer of Shanghai Rongrong New Material Technology Co., Ltd., told the first financial reporter that taking the company's research and development and production of high-temperature new material alumina continuous fiber as an example, China started relatively late in this field, basically starting from 2000 after the continuous fiber research and development, and the United States has begun mass production in the 1970s.
In the domestic research and development of alumina continuous fiber in the past 20 years, some companies are still at the laboratory level, did not complete the pilot test (Note: refers to the product before the formal production, small-scale testing), can only be small batch production and can not be large-scale production, until the current industry fair, Shanghai Rongrong announced the completion of the domestic alumina continuous fiber pilot, to create a set of high-alumina oxygen reinforced composite colloid and prepreg production, fiber production, fabric production, structural parts production, stereotype testing of the overall industrial chain, This also marks that the fifteen years of scientific research have gone out of the laboratory, and the "card neck era" of domestic high-temperature resistant new materials has finally ended.
Guan Ketian gave an example to the first financial reporter to illustrate the equipment technology gap in the production of new materials, such as in the production process of alumina continuous fiber, perforation technology will be used, foreign countries in the 1970s can already achieve an accuracy of 0.05 mm, and domestic equipment is now to achieve an accuracy of 0.08 mm There is still a high degree of difficulty.
Therefore, Yu Wei, deputy director of the Department of Raw Material Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, pointed out that the key strategic innovation ability is not enough, and the scientific achievements of cutting-edge new materials are not enough, which have brought some difficulties to the next development of the new material industry. At the same time, Yu Wei gave her planning goals for the new material industry: "We must focus on the long term, and strive to effectively improve the level of material security in key areas through about 5 years, advanced basic materials basically meet high-end applications, and some cutting-edge new material technologies have achieved industrialization scale." ”
Localization space
On the one hand, there is still a certain gap between some new materials in China and the international level; but on the other hand, this also means that in these fields, the domestic new material industry continues to improve technology and has huge potential development space.
For example, the aforementioned Shanghai Rongrong New Material Technology Co., Ltd., its product quality has approached the international level, and it can also be localized in raw materials and equipment. "In the absence of molding equipment to emulate, our equipment is developed by ourselves, and the raw materials of the product are completely localized." Guan Ketian told the first financial reporter.
A huge advantage of the localization of new materials is also reflected in the cost. Guan Ketian revealed to the first financial reporter that Shanghai Rongrong's alumina continuous fiber products, while various performance and indicators are close to the international level, the price is about 40% lower than the price of foreign imports, and after large-scale industrialization in the future, there is still more room for cost decline.
Huatai Securities analyst Bao Rongfu and others in the research report "traditional investment to stabilize domestic demand, new materials to lead the upgrade" analysis that in the context of "with the domestic large cycle as the main body, domestic and international dual cycles promote each other", the new material industry has two opportunities: First, industrial migration and other industry opportunities, giving birth to domestic material demand to increase, semiconductors, 5g and other industries represented by accelerated transfer to the country, the independent and controllable demand for upstream materials has been significantly improved. The implementation of the national six emission standards for automobiles will bring opportunities for vehicle exhaust purification materials.
Secondly, the technical upgrading of domestic materials themselves has accelerated the domestic development process of high-end materials. At present, China's traditional industries such as consumer electronics, building materials, automobiles and other fields still rely on imports, with the improvement of domestic material technology, some domestic materials have cut into the mainstream market, such as carbon fiber for automobile lightweight and military industry, as well as high-end coatings, sealants, electronic yarns for building materials.
In the case of the acceleration of the trend of localization, the performance of domestic new material companies is also steadily improving. Jin Yiteng, an analyst at Kaiyuan Securities, made an overall analysis of the first half of the performance of 76 new material listed companies, and found that with the steady progress of domestic resumption of work and production, under the trend of domestic materials replacing imported materials, in the first half of 2020, the performance of China's domestic demand-oriented new material enterprises achieved relatively tenacious growth.
The so-called domestic demand new material enterprises, that is, the domestic revenue accounted for more than 60% of the enterprises in 2019, in the 60 domestic demand new material enterprises, about 90% of the enterprises in the first half of the year achieved year-on-year growth in the first half of the year, of which the first half of the year attributable to the mother net profit increased by more than 100% of the enterprises accounted for 60%, the year-on-year growth rate of between 50% to 100% of the enterprises accounted for 18%, the year-on-year growth rate of between 0 to 50% of the enterprises accounted for 12%, the remaining only 10% of the enterprises in 2020 interim performance declined year-on-year.
Peng Shou said at the forum that China's new material industry system is basically complete, basically covering mainstream material varieties from basic materials to advanced structural materials to advanced functional materials. "In 2019, China's material output value has reached 4.5 trillion yuan, an increase of 15.4% year-on-year, with nearly 100 national key laboratories." Peng Shou said.
At present, China has introduced a series of guiding policies and measures to promote the development of the new material industry. Among them, according to the Data of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Shanghai New Materials accounts for nearly a quarter of the total output value of the city's seven emerging industries.
At the same time, Shanghai is also building a new material industry cluster in the Yangtze River Delta with global influence, such as the "Carbon Valley Green Bay" Industrial Park in Jinshan District, Shanghai, focusing on the development of new chemical materials, energy conservation and environmental protection, biomedicine and R & D and testing and other productive service industries, and has now formed four major industrial clusters of environmentally friendly coatings, new additives, pharmaceutical intermediates and polymer materials. According to Wang Xiangtian, general manager of Shanghai Jinshan Second Industrial Zone Development Co., Ltd., it is expected that by 2025, the output value of "Carbon Valley Green Bay" will exceed 50 billion yuan.