Major carbon fiber base emerging in Xinjiang

Machines were running at full speed on Wednesday to produce high-performance carbon fiber products at a factory in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

It was all part of the first phase of a project to produce 50,000 metric tons of quality carbon fiber annually.

"The plan is to build eight carbonization workshops within five years in four phases with a total of 16 production lines, each having a design capacity of 3,000 tons of carbon fiber per year," said Zhou You, deputy general manager of Xinjiang Runjust New Material Co.

"When all the production lines are put into operation, it will be the world's largest single carbon fiber industrial base."

Zhou said the first phase of the project began operating in December. Two carbonization lines have been built, with one producing 24K products and the other producing 48K products.

"A bundle of 48K fibers has 48,000 monofilaments, with the diameter of each only one-eighth that of a hair. The specific gravity is less than one-quarter that of steel, and the strength is seven to nine times that of steel," he said.