Spanish company Montefibre Carbon says that it has received €11.5 million from the Spanish Ministry of Industry, to produce polyacrylonitrile (PAN) precursor for conversion to carbon fiber with semi-aerospace quality and to build a flexible carbonization line.
The company is reportedly investing an additional €4.7 million in its plant in Miranda de Ebro, Spain.
Montefibre says that this investment will make it the third leading European producer of carbon fiber (after SGL from Germany and Solvay from Belgium). The line will also be the first owned by a Spanish company and the second to be installed in Spain (the first being the line built by Hexel in Illescas in 2008).
According to Montefibre, the new PAN precursor fiber will have a tensile strength of 700 ksi and will be marketed as M700. The new carbonization line, which will be operational by the end of 2021, will reportedly be able to work with fiber from 80K to 480K, up to a capacity of 100 tons per year.
‘The support of the Spanish Public Administration is essential to achieve the success of a project of the magnitude of Montefibre Carbon, which will be key to the industrial competitiveness of Spain, Castilla y León and Miranda de Ebro,’ said Alfonso Cirera Santasusana, CEO.
Montefibre Carbon says that it is also adapting four of its seven spinning lines to bring to market around 17,000 metric tons per year of its large-tow polyacrylonitrile (PAN) precursor for conversion to carbon fiber. The first precursor to reach the market will be an 80K tow in two industrial qualities, M500 (with a tensile strength of 500 ksi) and M600 (with a tensile strength of 600 ksi).
This story uses material from Montefibre Carbon, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier.
