The graphene industry is ushering in a new development trend, with both opportunities and challenges

Graphene is a two-dimensional carbon nanomaterial composed of carbon atoms with sp² hybrid orbitals forming a hexagonal honeycomb lattice. Graphene has excellent optical, electrical, and mechanical properties and has important application prospects in materials science, micro-nano processing, energy, biomedicine, and drug delivery. It is considered a revolutionary material in the future. Since graphene was proven to exist independently in 2004, the related industry has been developing for more than ten years. After going through the embryonic period and the development period, it has ushered in a new trend of development and a new situation in which opportunities and challenges coexist.

my country’s graphene industry has formed a cooperation mechanism for collaborative innovation among government departments, R&D institutions, and production enterprises. The good development trend has promoted the continuous growth trend in the scale of the industry and the number of enterprises. According to the “China Graphene Industry Market In-depth Research and Development Prospects Forecast Report 2022-2027” released by the Industrial Research Center, my country The annual registration number of graphene-related companies did not exceed 1,000 before 2017. In 2018, the number of registrations exceeded 3,100. The number of company registrations increased rapidly in 2020 and 2021, reaching 6,675 and 13,269 respectively. As of April 2022 In September, the number of graphene-related companies in my country has reached more than 35,000. As more and more companies enter the graphene industry, industrialization development is expected to accelerate in the future.

The growth in the number of graphene companies has led to the rapid development of the industry. From the perspective of geographical distribution, graphene companies are mainly distributed in the eastern coastal areas, and graphene industry clusters of a certain scale have been formed. From the perspective of enterprise scale, there are many enterprises in the graphene industry, but most of them are relatively small. As some listed graphene enterprises continue to develop, leading enterprises are expected to gradually emerge.

From the analysis of the industry chain, the upstream of the graphene industry chain is suppliers of raw materials and production equipment, including graphite ore resources and graphene preparation; the midstream is production companies, including graphene film production companies and graphene powder production companies; the downstream is applications Enterprises in the field, including lithium battery materials, touch screens, inks and coatings, etc. In the early stage, the graphene industry mainly followed the “top-down” industrial chain development model, with technology driving the development of the entire industry. However, as the application scenarios of graphene have been continuously enriched and the preparation technology has been matured in recent years, it has gradually integrated with various fields and developed, many emerging industries have emerged, and new markets have been opened up. The graphene industry has transformed from technology-driven to application-driven, ushering in a new development trend and with good future development prospects.

my country’s graphene industry still faces many challenges, mainly including technical aspects. The key technologies of my country’s graphene industry have not yet been broken through, and there are difficulties such as shallow basic physical property research, high environmental protection costs, and insufficient application development. In terms of corporate structure, my country’s graphene industry still faces many challenges. The scale of graphene enterprises is generally small, mainly small and medium-sized enterprises, with weak risk tolerance, weak research and development capabilities, and insufficient market competitiveness.

Industry analysts personnel said that my country’s graphene industry is facing a development situation where opportunities and challenges coexist, and companies must coordinate key national scientific research institutions. Focus on conquering key core technologies and improve independent innovation capabilities. At the same time, the industry should focus on cultivating advantageous enterprises, leading small and medium-sized enterprises to focus on industry, refine their main businesses, and improve the level of specialization in subdivided fields, thereby increasing the core competitiveness of the graphene industry.