carbon black

The global carbon black market is forecast to grow 4.0 percent per annum through 2008 to 9.6 million metric tons, almost matching projected gains in global rubber consumption over the same period. The vast majority of carbon black finds use as reinforcement in vulcanized rubber goods, including more than two-thirds for tires alone. However, as carbon black demand from the tire sector is projected to register below-average annual gains through 2008, the smaller non-tire carbon black market will exhibit strong growth. China's demand for carbon black has grown at a fast pace in the past decade. In the next five years, both production and demand will continue to grow. At present the output of white carbon black (WCB) in China has already reached 22 000 tons per year. The production technology, however, is still behindhand in comparison with advanced level of foreign producers. For example, the production scale is small, the domestic largest plants, production capacity is only 2 000 - 3 000 t/y, while the international economic scale is taken as to be 10 000 - 12 000 t/y.