Material Empire

Graphene is not cabbage, or at least so far, it is not cabbage. One hundred grams of graphene was provided to the institutions that came to the seminar for research, and each one was limited to one gram. No one would think that this was the key of Anhe Material College. On the contrary, everyone was shocked by this big hand. A full 100 grams of graphene, which is completely beyond the laboratory's production capacity, is sufficient to show that Anhe Materials College has been able to industrially prepare graphene.

Even for the 100 copies of graphene, the School of Materials was not provided free of charge to the participating institutions. Qin Hai's words made it clear: each institution is limited to one purchase, which means that it costs money to buy.

Immediately someone asked Wang Xiaochen for the price of graphene and the price of renting a laboratory. Wang Xiaochen's answer shocked everyone once again: the price of graphene is $ 100 per gram, while the rented laboratory charges $ 200 to $ 1,000 per day depending on the equipment and reagents required.

In the latter item, everyone has nothing to say. They all know that this is the price of conscience. It is also necessary to temporarily rent a laboratory with various analytical equipment in foreign universities. If the equipment used is relatively high-end, the price will be even higher.

What shocked everyone was the quotation of the previous item, which was $ 100 per gram of graphene, which was beyond everyone's imagination. However, most people think that the price is too cheap, and that the price is too expensive. Basically, they have not done any scientific research in this area, and they are purely those organizations seeking commercial cooperation.

"Ms. Wang, is the price of $ 100 a gram a public offer?" A scholar from the United States asked. One of the purposes of his visit to China this time was to purchase a batch of graphene for further experiments. So the question of price must be asked clearly.

Wang Xiaochen smiled sweetly and replied, "This gentleman. I need to explain that the price of graphene we charge this time is just a symbolic fee. Our current graphene production is still very low, and it is impossible to achieve such a low price. Public sale of graphene products. "

"So if I want to be able to buy 100 grams of graphene. How much does it cost?" The scholar asked seriously.

The people nearby were staring nervously at Wang Xiaochen, waiting to hear her answer. It is not only this scholar who wants to bring a batch of graphene back from China. There are also some companies who came up with the idea of ​​purchasing graphene as industrial raw materials. The quantity and price that Anhe Material College can supply Is what they are most concerned about.

Wang Xiaochen was well prepared for this problem. She pretended to be embarrassed, and said, "Sir. If you want to buy 100 grams of graphene this time, I can only say that I am sorry that we cannot satisfy your Requirements. I just said that our current graphene production is very low, only enough to meet our own experimental needs, and a little margin can be provided to important cooperative institutions. We are now building a graphene production line, about It can be put into production in six months, when we expect to be able to supply graphene products to the market in quantities of 5 kg per day. "

"So, how much do you expect the supply price?" Asked a European material merchant.

"I can't answer you exactly, though. According to our engineers' estimates, our supply price per gram of graphene is expected to be less than 20 US dollars," Wang Xiaochen replied.

"20 dollars!"

Everyone groaned.

The use of a new material is closely related to its price. Something like carbon fiber. When it first appeared, the price was so high that only high-end fields such as aerospace and aviation could be used. Next, with the improvement of technology, the price of carbon fiber continued to drop, so some people used it to make cars, Make bicycles, make fishing rods, and more. If one day carbon fiber could be as cheap as moso bamboo, there would naturally be carbon fiber furniture, boxes, and fences. All of this is directly determined by the price.

The same is true for graphene applications, as industrially produced graphene is not yet available. No one knows how much it will cost. $ 100 or $ 1,000 per gram is a possible outcome. Face different prices. Manufacturers need to consider what products they use to make them, and they need to estimate the pricing of the final product and the market space.

$ 20 per gram of graphene. It is much lower than most people expected. When Wang Xiaochen reported this price, many people were quickly thinking about how to maximize the development and utilization of this new material. As for how to realize these applications, they are naturally scientists. And engineers need to worry about things.

"Ms. Wang, will you continue to increase graphene production capacity in the future?"

From the crowd came a somewhat weird voice. The crowd looked around. I saw that the person was speaking a wretched Asian. From his English pronunciation, we can basically guess that this should be from a The guests of Dongying.

It was Yoshida Yoshida, the technical director of Shintsuka Chemical, but he was registered as a lecturer at a university in Osaka on the guest register of the School of Materials. Nitsuka Chemicals is well-known in the research and development and production of carbon materials, and Yoshida Yuan is worried that his true identity will alert the Daqin Group.

Yoshida Yuan came to Hongze, naturally to explore the reality of Daqin Group, and at the same time to actually get in touch with the finished graphene products, which is very important for his team to develop the industrial production process of graphene. When everyone asked Wang Xiaochen just now, he just mingled among the crowd and saw that Wang Xiaochen had some natural appearance. He couldn't help asking questions and wanted to find out more information from this female assistant.

Wang Xiaochen looked up at Yoshida Yuen and nodded. "Of course we will continue to increase the production capacity of graphene. Our group's goal is to achieve an annual output of more than 1,000 tons, and the price will drop to about 100 to 200 US dollars per kilogram. , So that graphene can become a new and widely used material. "

"100 dollars per kilogram?" The people around fry the pan at once, and just said that it was 20 dollars per gram, which means that it is 20,000 dollars per kilogram. How can it become 100 dollars per kilogram in a blink of an eye? In terms of conversion, shouldn't the price per gram fall below 10 cents?

Xiaochen Wang explained quickly: "Do n’t get me wrong, I am talking about the ultimate goal proposed by our group. This goal will not be achieved until at least 2010. In the short term, it is unlikely that our group will further expand its production capacity because the graphene The production process is very complicated and the equipment investment is beyond what we can afford. "

"So haven't you considered finding some partners to co-produce?" Yoshida asked again.

Wang Xiaochen shook his head: "At present, there is no demand for graphene. We are not sure. Finding a partner is not suitable at this time. Also, for our group, there are many things worth doing. Graphene is only one of our products, so it is impossible for the group to invest too much money in this project. "

"It's really a shame," Yoshida said falsely, but in his mind was another sentence: It turns out that these Chinese people are too short-sighted.

What is the scope of graphene's application, Yoshida Yuan had evaluated it a few years ago, which is one of the reasons he convinced the company to invest heavily in graphene research and development. According to Yoshida's calculations, if the price of graphene can really drop to $ 20 per gram, the global demand for at least 20 tons a year, which is equivalent to a market of $ 400 million a year. According to Wang Xiaochen, Daqin Group will form a daily production capacity of about 5 kilograms, with an annual output of less than 2 tons, accounting for only 10% of the entire market. This is strategic shortsightedness.

We must know that as an enterprise that has advanced technology, it is very important to maintain the monopoly position of the market. This will not only enable the enterprise to obtain as much profit as possible, but the most important thing is to squeeze those potential competitors and make them Stay in the lead for more time.

Daqin Group cannot correctly assess the market size, and even considers graphene as an ordinary product. It is unwilling to expand production capacity simply because of excessive investment, which gives Xinzuo Chemical a chance to counterattack. As long as Xinzuo Chemical can develop its own preparation process in a short period of time, even if the technology is more complicated and the cost is slightly higher than that of Daqin Group, it will also have the opportunity to survive because of the huge gap in the market ~ www.novelmtl.com ~ Yoshida believes that as long as Nitsuka Chemical can compete with the Daqin Group, the final winner must be Nitsuka Chemical. The Daqin Group has worked hard to open the door to graphene, and has painstakingly developed two preparation processes, which will eventually become a stepping stone for Xinzuo Chemical.

In order not to reveal his feet, Yoshida Yuan didn't say anything, but re-entered the crowd and stopped showing his head. However, he thought he was acting well, but he didn't know that the mantis was catching cicadas and the yellow bird was behind him. After answering everyone's questions, Wang Xiaochen arranged for the guests to take a meal to the cafeteria, and returned to the office by himself, seeing Xiao Qin, the intelligence director of Daqin Group, waiting for her in the office with a smile.

"Xiao Qi, when did you come?" Wang Xiaochen greeted Xu Xiaoqi personally, the other party was not only a middle-level cadre of the group, but also the general manager Ning Zhongying's daughter-in-law, like her, belonged to Gao Family members, their usual relationship is very close.

Xu Xiaoqi said: "You have made such a big movement, and there are so many global scholars. As an information maker, how can I not make a joke? When you were meeting in the lecture hall, I was already watching from behind. It ’s just that neither you nor Qin saw me. By the way, Xiao Chen, do you know the origin of the Japanese who talked to you later? ”(To be continued)