Silicon nitride fiber (Si3N4 fiber) has broad application prospects and my country’s research has made new progress

Silicon nitride fiber refers to ceramic fiber made from silazane precursor fiber fired at high temperature. Compared with other ceramic fibers, silicon nitride fibers have the characteristics of silicon nitride ceramics and fiber materials. They have the advantages of high strength, high temperature resistance, high elastic modulus, and good corrosion resistance. They are widely used in thermal insulation materials, electronic and electrical , automobile manufacturing, aerospace and other fields have broad application prospects.

Silicon nitride fiber preparation methods include heat treatment xerogel method, thermal evaporation method, template method, chemical vapor deposition (CVD), precursor conversion method, etc. The heat treatment xerogel method refers to using silica xerogel as the base material and using metal nanoparticle catalysts to produce finished products under nitrogen protection conditions. This method has high production costs and difficulty in production, and has not been scaled up. Application; Precursor conversion method refers to using polysilane, polysilazane and perhydropolysilazane as precursors to obtain finished products through melt spinning, high-temperature nitridation and other processes. This method is the mainstream of silicon nitride fiber Preparation.

Attracted by market prospects, my country’s enthusiasm for research and development of silicon nitride fibers continues to rise, and many new developments have been made. At the beginning of 2022, the research team of Professors Ding Bin and Yu Jianyong of Donghua University successfully prepared a high-performance radiation cooling textile-graded polyurethane/silicon nitride fiber based on the all-day cooling method of cooling textiles, using spandex and silicon nitride fibers. Membrane, this product has the advantages of good thermal conductivity and good wettability, and will be used in industrial production, sportswear manufacturing and other fields in the future.

According to the “2023-2028 China Silicon Nitride Fiber (Si3N4 Fiber) Industry Market In-depth Research and Development Prospects Forecast Report span>》shows that silicon nitride fiber has excellent performance and can be used as a reinforcement for metal matrix composite materials and ceramic matrix composite materials. It has broad application prospects in the fields of thermal insulation materials, electronic and electrical, automobile manufacturing, and aerospace. However, currently, due to factors such as high technical barriers and high production costs, my country’s silicon nitride fiber market share is low. In the future, as downstream demand becomes increasingly strong, the development space of my country’s silicon nitride fiber industry will further expand.

The global silicon nitride fiber market is mainly concentrated in Europe, the United States and Japan. Representative companies include The Dow Chemical Company (DOW) of the United States, Bayer Group of Germany (Bayer), and East Asia Fuel Company of Japan. my country’s silicon nitride fiber industry started late, and there is still a gap in technology level and product quality compared with overseas developed countries. Torch Electronics is the only enterprise in my country that has realized the industrialization of silicon nitride fiber.

Industry analysts said that silicon nitride fiber, as a high-performance ceramic fiber, is widely used in many fields and has good prospects for industry development. At present, due to factors such as high technical barriers and high production costs, the large-scale application of silicon nitride fibers in my country is slowly advancing. In the future, with the improvement of independent research and development capabilities of Chinese enterprises, the development speed of the silicon nitride fiber industry is expected to accelerate.