Analysis of prospect of flake graphite

Natural flake graphite has superior physical and chemical properties, and is widely used in metallurgy, electronics, light industry, military industry, national defense, aerospace and refractory industries, and is an important non-metallic raw material that is indispensable for today’s high-tech. Flake graphite is divided into large flake graphite and fine flake graphite according to the size of the flakes. Usually, large flakes refer to +50 mesh, +80 mesh, +100 mesh flake graphite, and flake graphite below these meshes is called fine flake graphite.

Larger flake graphite VS Finer flake graphite

1. In terms of economic value, under the same grade, the price of large flake graphite is dozens of times that of fine flake graphite.

2. In terms of use, large flake graphite must be used in the manufacture of crucibles and expanded graphite, and fine-grained graphite cannot be used or is difficult to use; among the raw materials for graphene preparation, large flake graphite is more conducive to the formation of graphene;

3. In terms of the properties of flake graphite, large flake graphite is better than fine flake graphite, such as lubricity, the larger the graphite flakes, the lower the friction coefficient and the better the lubricity;

4. In terms of production, in addition to extracting large flake graphite from raw ore, modern industrial technology cannot produce synthetic large flake graphite. Once the scale is damaged, it cannot be recovered, and the fine scale can be obtained by crushing the large scale.

New energy materials will be the fastest growing application of flake graphite

With the adjustment of my country’s economic structure, the application trend of graphite gradually shifting to the field of new energy and new materials is obvious, including the consumption of conductive materials (lithium batteries, fuel cells, etc.), oil additives and fluorine graphite and other fields will increase significantly.

Among lithium-ion battery materials, the anode material is the key to determine the performance of the battery. As a highly crystalline graphite material, the particle size of flake graphite directly affects the specific surface area of ​​the electrode and the proportion of edge carbon atoms, which has a great influence on the irreversible specific capacity at the first charge. For lithium-ion batteries, flake graphite can not only prolong the battery life, promote stable voltage, enhance conductivity, but also reduce battery cost. Therefore, flake graphite plays a vital role in batteries. In the future, new energy and new materials will become one of the fastest-growing application fields for flake graphite consumption.

Total consumption trend of flake graphite

Preparation of expanded graphite: In addition to lithium-ion batteries, another area where graphite consumption is growing fastest is expanded graphite materials. Expandable graphite is a new type of carbon material developed in the past ten years. It not only has the excellent properties of natural graphite itself such as heat resistance, corrosion resistance, and self-lubrication, but also has properties such as light weight, softness, compressibility, and resilience that natural graphite does not have. Various strips, plates and sheets made of expandable graphite have been widely used as various dynamic and static seals in petroleum, chemical, electric power, metallurgy, medicine, food, machinery and other industries, and have shown low cost and low energy consumption. Less, long life, good effect and so on. Moreover, the flexible graphite material processed from expanded graphite has good electrical and thermal conductivity, and can be used in the production of graphite seals, heat dissipation materials and fuel cells, and has broad application fields and market prospects.

The flake graphite provided by Franli has a good price and high quality. It is exported all over the world and has been widely praised.