Driven by the development of market segments and application markets, the structural foam material industry has huge development potential.

Structural foam materials refer to foam materials that use resin as a matrix and are formed through a specific foaming method. According to different raw materials, structural foam materials can be divided into polyvinyl chloride (PVC) foam materials, acrylonitrile-styrene (SAN) foam materials, polymethacrylamide (PMI) foam materials, polystyrene (PS) foam materials, Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) foam materials, etc. Among them, PVC, PET and PMI foam materials are currently the mainstream products in the domestic structural foam material market.

Structural foam materials have the characteristics of light weight, high specific strength, low water absorption, strong heat resistance, stable chemical properties, good mechanical properties, good processability, and high cost performance. They can be widely used in automobiles, ships, industry, wind power generation, aviation Aerospace, building insulation, rail transit and other fields. In recent years, driven by the rapid development of the application field of structural foam materials, the scale of its domestic market has continued to expand. According to the “In-depth Market Research and Investment Strategy Suggestions Report on Structural Foam Materials Industry 2022-2026” released by the Industrial Research Center, in 2021 In 2018, the market size of my country’s structural foam materials reached 3.15 billion yuan.

Currently, wind power generation is the largest application area of ​​structural foam materials. Compared with other structural foam materials, PET foam materials have the advantages of better high-temperature performance, stronger mechanical properties and higher cost performance. It has become one of the important core materials for domestic wind turbine blades. Benefiting from the rapid development of the domestic wind power industry, the total market demand for wind power blades in 2021 has exceeded 360 million sets, and the market size has reached 60.41 billion yuan. Driven by the rapid development of the domestic wind turbine blade market, the market demand for PET foam materials continues to increase. In 2021, its domestic market demand has reached 273,000 cubic meters.

PVC foam material is currently the product with the widest application range and the highest output in the domestic structural foam material market. PVC foam is a thermosetting material prepared from vinyl polymer as raw material. It has excellent dynamic and static mechanical properties and is widely used in wind power, machinery, automobiles, ships, construction and other fields. As one of the major automobile and shipbuilding manufacturing countries and one of the major building construction countries, my country’s domestic demand for PVC foam materials continues to grow and production continues to increase. In 2021, my country’s PVC foam material production has exceeded 750,000 tons.

At present, the main international companies of structural foam materials include Sweden’s Diab, Italy’s Maricell, Switzerland’s Sirian, Switzerland’s 3A, Germany’s Armacell, Switzerland’s Gurit, etc.; the main local companies include Tiansheng New Materials, Cobos, Lianyang New Materials, Shanghai Yue Ke, Visai New Materials, etc.

Industry analysts personnel said that at this stage, my country’s structural foam material companies are leading the way with foreign countries in terms of technical level, special equipment, brand building, etc. There is still a big gap between enterprises. Therefore, currently, domestic high-end structural foam materials still rely on imports. In the future, driven by the rapid development of market segments and the continued growth of market demand in application fields, the technical level and product R&D strength of local structural foam material companies are expected to rapidly improve, which will in turn promote the continuous strengthening of the core competitiveness of local companies and the dependence on imports in the domestic high-end market. Continuously declining, the industry has broad prospects for development.