Break the predicament to survive! Carbon enterprises are near-bankrupt? Due to vicious competition!

China's graphite electrode production process has been developed for more than half a century, but but there is still a big gap compared with foreign advanced enterprises, thus causing the predicament: on the one hand, due to the oversupply of low-end graphite and malicious competition, many graphite electrode manufacturers are struggling to survive.

On the other hand, more than 80% of large-scale UHP electrodes used in large-scale DC EAF in our country have to be imported from abroad. Graphite electrode production industry development is far behind the use of electrode industry requirements. Even for the RP graphite electrode, there are still many problems in its production process, such as low yield, high production cost, poor use effect, etc. Especially when the graphite electrode industry is in a trough, it is necessary to explore the production process problems and the improvement measures.

This article mainly analyzes and summarizes the existing production process problems of small and medium-sized enterprises.

Problems & Gaps:

Raw Materials.

There is an objective gap of the raw materials used in UHP GRAPHITE Co., Ltd. electrode production in China. Whether in Japan or the USA, the source of raw materials for graphite electrodes production is stable and the quality is reliable. Due to the needle coke supply problem in China, graphite electrode manufacturers have to change suppliers and raw material ratio frequently. Moreover, there is still a certain quality gap between domestic needle coke and imported needle coke.

Subjectively speaking, UHP GRAPHITE Co., Ltd. electrode manufacturers in China blended the lower-priced Daqing or Fushun petroleum coke, even some other petroleum coke in order to reduce the cost. Moreover, individual manufacturers produce UHP electrodes without any needle coke, at best increasing impregnation number. Using such electrodes as UHP electrodes will inevitably lead to commotion in price and seriously endanger the interests of manufacturers.

The production of RP electrode also has raw materials problem. Especially for the graphite electrodes production with a diameter of 500mm and 600mm, the easily graphitized Daqing or Fushun petroleum coke is usually selected as raw materials. However, in order to reduce costs, many small and medium-sized enterprises in China choose Huludao coke or worse petroleum coke as raw material, and there will be a large number of waste products in production process, eventually caused high consumption and block loss and other problems.

Binder

The special electrode pitch is used in the production of graphite electrode in foreign countries, domestic pitch manufacturers can also produce modified pitch under continuous efforts. The electrode quality of many manufacturers has been improved, but there is still a process to be promoted. Many manufacturers do not pay attention to the binder, some manufacturers' understanding of coal pitch only stays at the softening point, and other indicators are not checked. In the production process, the binder only melts without static process, it is inevitable that a large number of waste products appear in the molding and baking process.

Mixed ingredients

1. Because of the problems in choosing vibrating screen or drying net, the particle purity is very low, which is only 50%-60% for many manufacturers, so the particle materials between the pots are very different, it is difficult to ensure the stability of the paste.

2. Many manufacturers have not yet adopted electronic weighing batching, ingredients too many artificial factors in batching, resulting in a large difference in the plasticity and granularity of paste between pots.

3. Ingredients are too large. There are many manufacturers because workers are paid according to the output, regardless of the maximum output of rolling kneading pan, blindly more ingredients. The material on the kneading pot is not moving in the production, and the paste is mixed with dry material, so raw billet quality is not guaranteed.

4. Components are too thin. Many manufacturers still use the powder purity of 75%, or even more than 80%; powder in the screening analysis is not standard, to the powder sample is not dried, some manufacturers even do not provide glass balls when sieving powder, these will lead to the powder used in production too fine. Moreover, it is difficult for domestic kneading pots to mix the fine powder uniformly. The use of fine powder not only has a low yield in the molding process, but also in roasting and graphitization process, and ultimately consumes a lot in usage.

5. Unreasonable use of dust powder. First is the dust powder is too fine, the second is too much impurity. Many large factories in the production process will use dust powder for other purposes, especially in the UHP and HP electrode; Even for RP electrode, it should also be added evenly, rather than adding when have it, without adding when haven’t it, or directly discharging the dust into the powder, powder and dust are unevenly mixed together. If the amount of dust powder exceeds 7%, the quality of raw billet will be affected.

The rationality of formula granularity. In recent years, domestic professional and technical personnel have done a lot of work in formulation strength composition, and the concept of  formulation strength is highly praised, but how this formulation comes from and what type of furnace the product is used in still need to explore and summarize.