WEBVTT - Bricks from mud and straw - a primer on composites and where to find them

0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:04.320
<v Speaker 1>Hi everyone. Today we're going to talk about composites, specifically

0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:07.680
<v Speaker 1>an insight titled Advanced Materials Primer Series Carbon and Glass

0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:11.440
<v Speaker 1>Fiber Composites by Leilang Zhang and Julia Atwood published on

0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:13.760
<v Speaker 1>March nineteenth. You can find it through a quick search

0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:16.200
<v Speaker 1>on beanef dot com, the benef mobile app or on

0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:20.080
<v Speaker 1>beanof gu on terminal. So what is a composite? According

0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:22.479
<v Speaker 1>to the report, it's a material composed of at least

0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:25.759
<v Speaker 1>two distinct components that work together to provide superior performance

0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:29.440
<v Speaker 1>than either of them individually. Typically, the primary component is

0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:33.040
<v Speaker 1>the feedstock or matrix, which provides support, while the secondary

0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:36.920
<v Speaker 1>component is a reinforcement, which provides strength and stiffness. Okay,

0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:38.560
<v Speaker 1>so when I read this, I thought of two things,

0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:42.120
<v Speaker 1>The Ten Commandments and Star Wars, you know, the movies.

0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:45.159
<v Speaker 1>In the nineteen fifty six epic paroh a k a

0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:47.839
<v Speaker 1>eule Brenner commands that no straw can be used to

0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:50.880
<v Speaker 1>make bricks. The reply to that was, how can people

0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:53.640
<v Speaker 1>make bricks without straw? The combination of mud and straw

0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:56.240
<v Speaker 1>to make bricks is actually the first known composite in

0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.040
<v Speaker 1>Star Wars. That's obviously when Han Solo was frozen in

0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:01.600
<v Speaker 1>carbonite in the Empire strikes back. Okay, well I got

0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:04.720
<v Speaker 1>that one wrong. Carbonite isn't actually a composite but a

0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:07.959
<v Speaker 1>flash frozen carbon gas. But it's not real either, so

0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:11.480
<v Speaker 1>maybe I wasn't wrong. Um Anyway, Today we're going to

0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:14.120
<v Speaker 1>talk with Dr Julia Atwood, who leads BENFS cover to

0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:17.720
<v Speaker 1>Advanced Materials. She's going to introduce us to composites, which

0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:19.840
<v Speaker 1>seem to be growing in importance as they make their

0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:22.200
<v Speaker 1>way into more and more areas of industry. We'll go

0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:24.840
<v Speaker 1>over the uses for composites, which ones you'd use for

0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:29.200
<v Speaker 1>a given job, their advantages and limitations, costs, and future demand.

0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:31.440
<v Speaker 1>We'll also talk about what's next for BENF and this

0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.039
<v Speaker 1>new research channel. Please note that BENIF does not provide

0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:36.200
<v Speaker 1>investment or strategy advice, and you can hear a full

0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:38.720
<v Speaker 1>disclaimer at the end of the show. I'm Mark Taylor,

0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:41.080
<v Speaker 1>out of product for BENF and you're listening to switch

0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:47.840
<v Speaker 1>on the BENF Client Podcast. Hi, Julia, how you doing good? Thanks? Mark?

0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:50.480
<v Speaker 1>How are you good? Good? Thanks for coming in. Can

0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:52.840
<v Speaker 1>you start us off today by telling us a bit

0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:58.440
<v Speaker 1>about the Advanced materials coverage? Absolutely so, advanced Materials is

0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:01.600
<v Speaker 1>a new topic for BENU because we're really interested in

0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.960
<v Speaker 1>what's going on in the world of materials. There's broadly

0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:09.079
<v Speaker 1>three things that we want to cover. The first is composites,

0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:11.919
<v Speaker 1>which we're going to be talking about today. The second

0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.560
<v Speaker 1>is cool new forms of manufacturing like three D printing

0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:18.280
<v Speaker 1>or how we can make the whole indistinct greener. And

0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:21.960
<v Speaker 1>then the last is around sustainable materials in the circular economy.

0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:25.600
<v Speaker 1>That's driving a lot of change in materials for companies,

0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:28.560
<v Speaker 1>so that's why we're really interested in it. How did

0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:31.360
<v Speaker 1>you get into this? I have been in materials for

0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:34.920
<v Speaker 1>a long time, so I'm an engineer by training, but

0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:38.560
<v Speaker 1>I always loved chemistry. So when I was studying engineering,

0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:41.160
<v Speaker 1>I decided I wanted to specialize in materials because it

0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:43.160
<v Speaker 1>gave me the best of both worlds. I could be

0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:45.680
<v Speaker 1>a chemistry nerd one day and be talking to you

0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:49.960
<v Speaker 1>about a turbine engine next. You're based here in London. Yes,

0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:52.640
<v Speaker 1>I don't know why I asked as a question. I

0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:54.880
<v Speaker 1>sit near you, m so how do you How do

0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:58.160
<v Speaker 1>you get to work? I'm really lucky. I concycle to

0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:01.080
<v Speaker 1>work and I have this gorgeous along the river, so

0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:02.919
<v Speaker 1>I get to kind of see the sun rising every

0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:05.960
<v Speaker 1>morning over the buildings of London. Okay, that was also

0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:08.160
<v Speaker 1>a loaded question. Everybody Julius cycles to work and I

0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:10.760
<v Speaker 1>wanted to talk about her bike. Is your bike carbon fiber?

0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:12.720
<v Speaker 1>Is it made out of carbon fiber? It is not.

0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:15.960
<v Speaker 1>I'm sad to say that's the topic of today's conversation.

0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:18.160
<v Speaker 1>We're gonna be talking about Compositi, as we said, and

0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.000
<v Speaker 1>we're gonna frame it in terms of Julia's bicycle. Would

0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:25.079
<v Speaker 1>you want a carbon fiber bicycle? I absolutely would. The

0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:28.080
<v Speaker 1>only reason I don't have one is because I have

0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:31.200
<v Speaker 1>this emotional connection to my bike right now because I

0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:34.520
<v Speaker 1>got it for fifteen pounds from one of the technicians

0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:37.760
<v Speaker 1>in my old lab at university. Okay, but why would

0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:41.520
<v Speaker 1>you want a carbon fiber bible? Because they're just so cool. Mark,

0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:46.680
<v Speaker 1>They're cool because they have this gorgeous shape. Carbon fiber

0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:49.600
<v Speaker 1>you often see as a woven material, so it's got

0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:54.360
<v Speaker 1>this beautiful like um basket weave on the materials. And

0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:57.240
<v Speaker 1>the other thing is like, I'm not a big person.

0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:00.520
<v Speaker 1>It's pretty hard for me to lift my massive steal

0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:04.320
<v Speaker 1>commuter bicycle that I have right now. Whereas a carbon

0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:08.440
<v Speaker 1>fiber frame super light. One of our colleagues, Yonus, he

0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:11.120
<v Speaker 1>is very much into his bicycles, and he was telling

0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.320
<v Speaker 1>me that the frame of his racing bike was less

0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:18.320
<v Speaker 1>than a kilo and even I could lift that. Yeah,

0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:22.320
<v Speaker 1>that's pretty impressive. So weight is one advantage of carbon fiber,

0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:26.320
<v Speaker 1>what's a what's another. While the other great thing about

0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:30.160
<v Speaker 1>it is because it's primarily plastic, you can leave it

0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:32.480
<v Speaker 1>outside and it's not going to rest. I saw a

0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:36.040
<v Speaker 1>lot of bikes at university just deteriorating because they had

0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:41.080
<v Speaker 1>to be left outside because none of us had garages exactly.

0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:43.640
<v Speaker 1>So it's it's much more durable. So that's a big

0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:46.279
<v Speaker 1>advantage if you're going through the daily wear and tear,

0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:49.000
<v Speaker 1>you're leaving your bike out in the rain. And then

0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.520
<v Speaker 1>the other thing is that it feels much stiffer um

0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:55.040
<v Speaker 1>So a lot of people don't notice because they ride

0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:57.040
<v Speaker 1>the same bike all the time, but if you change

0:04:57.080 --> 0:04:59.640
<v Speaker 1>too a much stiffer bike, everything just feels better. You

0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.520
<v Speaker 1>can turn corner is more easily, it doesn't feel as wobbly.

0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:05.279
<v Speaker 1>So in the in the note in the primer, you

0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:09.200
<v Speaker 1>talk about weight, you talk about mechanical properties, stiffness, the durability.

0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:10.680
<v Speaker 1>One thing we're not going to talk about in relation

0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:13.479
<v Speaker 1>to bicycles is the electrical and thermal properties. Could you

0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:15.919
<v Speaker 1>touch on those just a little bit, Yeah, for sure.

0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:20.040
<v Speaker 1>So carbon fiber is it can be a lot of

0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:23.240
<v Speaker 1>things as a material. It's very easily tailored to one

0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:27.480
<v Speaker 1>thing or the other, and different applications want different things. So,

0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:29.880
<v Speaker 1>for example, in an aircraft, you do not want your

0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:34.000
<v Speaker 1>material to be electrically conductive. So that's why carbon fiber

0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:36.680
<v Speaker 1>is great because it can be an insulator. Now in

0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:40.640
<v Speaker 1>some cases if you manufacture the material in a certain way,

0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.600
<v Speaker 1>then because carbon in the same way as graphite can

0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:46.880
<v Speaker 1>use as an electrode, it can be electrically conductive. So

0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:49.680
<v Speaker 1>that's That's another one of the benefits of composites is

0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:51.880
<v Speaker 1>that you can kind of make them what you want

0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:56.840
<v Speaker 1>by changing how you're manufacturing them. And designers love that

0:05:57.000 --> 0:05:59.239
<v Speaker 1>because it means they don't have to have access material.

0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:01.320
<v Speaker 1>They can just to have what they need in the

0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:04.000
<v Speaker 1>place where they need it. So it's efficient, which every

0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:07.400
<v Speaker 1>engineer loves. Actually. Okay, so what would we use the

0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:11.200
<v Speaker 1>term carbon fiber loosely? But but what would a carbon

0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:15.400
<v Speaker 1>fiber quote unquote bicycle be made of and why composite

0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:19.560
<v Speaker 1>would you choose. You would definitely choose a carbon fiber,

0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:25.240
<v Speaker 1>so you could. Right now, most bicycles are made from

0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:30.479
<v Speaker 1>either steel or aluminum or carbon fiber. So steel is

0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:33.640
<v Speaker 1>your like retro super heavy, I don't care about weight

0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:37.200
<v Speaker 1>kind of bike. Um, it's cheap, it's cheerful, it'll do

0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:41.200
<v Speaker 1>the job. Aluminum is in the seventies and eighties, when

0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:43.719
<v Speaker 1>people thought they were fancy, they would get an aluminum bike.

0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:48.000
<v Speaker 1>It's a bit lighter, still the same basic manufacturing techniques,

0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.880
<v Speaker 1>so nothing big had to change for the people making it.

0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:57.320
<v Speaker 1>Or you have carbon fiber, and that's very specialized, pretty expensive.

0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.560
<v Speaker 1>You're talking about like five or six thousand dollars for

0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:07.279
<v Speaker 1>a bike rather than my fifteen pounds, which is about um.

0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.000
<v Speaker 1>But it's much more difficult to manufacturer. You have to

0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:14.080
<v Speaker 1>do it by hand. And what's in there is really

0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:16.560
<v Speaker 1>interesting because there are a few different ways that you

0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:22.040
<v Speaker 1>can use composites to make something. The basic constituent materials

0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:26.440
<v Speaker 1>are carbon fibers, which just basically look like threads, and

0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:29.280
<v Speaker 1>you can weave them. You can place them next to

0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:30.800
<v Speaker 1>each other in the same way as you would deal

0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:33.480
<v Speaker 1>with like a fabric. So when you're making something with

0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:36.200
<v Speaker 1>a composite, what they do is they take these fibers

0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:38.600
<v Speaker 1>which are the strong bit, and then they coat them

0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:41.680
<v Speaker 1>in a plastic and normally for carbon fiber that's in epoxy.

0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:48.360
<v Speaker 1>And so when you combine these two, the fibers and

0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.480
<v Speaker 1>the polymer, then you get a prepreg and then you've

0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.400
<v Speaker 1>got like a sheet of something that you then want

0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:57.239
<v Speaker 1>to place in a mold. Most of this is done

0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:01.520
<v Speaker 1>by hand and it's incredibly t idious. Basically, what you

0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:03.880
<v Speaker 1>do is you put the preprag in the mold and

0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:06.760
<v Speaker 1>then you get a big roller and then you roll

0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:10.520
<v Speaker 1>more of the polymer resin. That's the matrix on top

0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.120
<v Speaker 1>of it. It's like putting up wallpaper, but you have

0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:15.560
<v Speaker 1>to put up layer upon layer upon layer. It's like

0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:18.080
<v Speaker 1>wallpaper that you have to put up fifty times in

0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:20.200
<v Speaker 1>order to get the pattern that you want. Is that

0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:23.720
<v Speaker 1>why it's so expensive. Yes, that's one of the big reasons.

0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:28.679
<v Speaker 1>The other one is scale um and that's just about

0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:31.280
<v Speaker 1>getting more people using carbon fibers so that we make

0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:34.000
<v Speaker 1>more of it so that it gets cheaper. What are

0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:37.520
<v Speaker 1>the what other limitations are there besides cost? I mean,

0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:40.720
<v Speaker 1>cost is the big one because it's just such a difference.

0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:45.600
<v Speaker 1>Like carbon fiber cost kilogram. Steel is like less than

0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:48.319
<v Speaker 1>a dollar, and then aluminum is around two and a

0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:51.439
<v Speaker 1>half dollars a kilogram. So cost is what the whole

0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:56.120
<v Speaker 1>industry is focusing on. The manufacturing is important as well,

0:08:56.880 --> 0:08:59.880
<v Speaker 1>because if you have to make something by hand that's expensive,

0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:03.840
<v Speaker 1>you normally make big things out of carbon fiber, so

0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:07.240
<v Speaker 1>you'll make a wing for an airplane, or you'll make

0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.319
<v Speaker 1>the body frame of a car. Because if you're going

0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:12.560
<v Speaker 1>to go to the trouble of making this mold, you

0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:14.719
<v Speaker 1>want to be able to use it multiple times and

0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:16.920
<v Speaker 1>have it be a big proportion of what you're making.

0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:19.840
<v Speaker 1>But the one of the other problems is that everybody

0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:22.920
<v Speaker 1>knows how to deal with metal. You have design standards,

0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:25.440
<v Speaker 1>you know what's going to happen to it as it ages,

0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:27.959
<v Speaker 1>you know how to recycle it. One of the big

0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:32.800
<v Speaker 1>big problems with carbon fibers that there's not much recycling capacity.

0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:35.679
<v Speaker 1>And I'm sure you've seen all this stuff around plastic waste.

0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.280
<v Speaker 1>Nobody wants to be creating any more plastic waste these days.

0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.880
<v Speaker 1>That's pretty bad for pr. So when you come to

0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:45.160
<v Speaker 1>the industry and say I want to use this material

0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:49.120
<v Speaker 1>that's made from petro chemicals and we don't recycle a

0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:53.400
<v Speaker 1>lot of it. Everyone's like, whoa hold the phone? Is

0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.640
<v Speaker 1>this the environmentally friendly thing that we want to be doing.

0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:01.040
<v Speaker 1>My answer to that is two fold. One is when

0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:05.120
<v Speaker 1>you're thinking about cars and airplanes, super light high performance

0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:07.440
<v Speaker 1>materials like composites, it's going to help you in the

0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:10.440
<v Speaker 1>short term to reduce your emissions. And that's kind of

0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:13.240
<v Speaker 1>like a problem number one. At the end of the day,

0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:15.760
<v Speaker 1>Even if you have to collect up and store all

0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:18.800
<v Speaker 1>the carbon fiber waste in the world, there's not that

0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:21.600
<v Speaker 1>much of it because we've only been using it in

0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:25.000
<v Speaker 1>serious quantities since the eighties or nineties, and a lot

0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:28.800
<v Speaker 1>of it is in things that we're still using, like airplanes.

0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:33.840
<v Speaker 1>These were specialty, high performance goods that nobody wants to

0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:35.880
<v Speaker 1>throw away. You have a chart in there that shows

0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:40.000
<v Speaker 1>like when carbon fibers started to appear somewhere around the eighties,

0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.520
<v Speaker 1>and that that was mostly in airplanes. Yes, the aerospace

0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:46.280
<v Speaker 1>industry has been one of the first people to adopt it,

0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:50.080
<v Speaker 1>partly because you don't make that many planes a year.

0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:53.320
<v Speaker 1>You know, it's a few thousand um so it's reasonable

0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:55.160
<v Speaker 1>to spend a lot of money on your materials and

0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:58.800
<v Speaker 1>your manufacturing. And also because fuel is such a huge

0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:01.400
<v Speaker 1>cost for them, so they can cut their costs by

0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:04.640
<v Speaker 1>using this light material plant can go the same distance

0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:07.640
<v Speaker 1>less fuel. You mentioned the pets are the feed stock

0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:12.439
<v Speaker 1>for these carbon fibers. What about for the end composite

0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:15.560
<v Speaker 1>UM But in the note you had a single few

0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:19.480
<v Speaker 1>words in there they talked about bio based feed stocks.

0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:23.240
<v Speaker 1>Where is that and what might goes be? So the

0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:26.480
<v Speaker 1>bio based feedstocks can be used for both the fiber

0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:31.120
<v Speaker 1>and the polymer that goes in the matrix, the polymer matrix.

0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:34.000
<v Speaker 1>That's a more developed area for biofeed stocks, and we're

0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:37.000
<v Speaker 1>actually writing a note on that as we speak, So

0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:40.760
<v Speaker 1>look out for the bioplastics word people. UM. For the

0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:45.280
<v Speaker 1>fibers themselves, that's much earlier stage. It's either made from

0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:47.880
<v Speaker 1>oil products to get what we call a pan fiber,

0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:50.840
<v Speaker 1>or from coal to get what we call it pitch fiber.

0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:55.200
<v Speaker 1>Pitch is a little bit better. It's a slightly stronger material,

0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:58.360
<v Speaker 1>so it is coming from these oil products. But at

0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:00.520
<v Speaker 1>the end of the day, all you need is carbon

0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:04.160
<v Speaker 1>in some form, and carbon isn't everything. So I've heard

0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:09.200
<v Speaker 1>of some people trying to make carbon fibers from coconut residue. Um,

0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:13.480
<v Speaker 1>but any kind of biomass could in theory be used.

0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:16.320
<v Speaker 1>It's just a question of figuring out the processing route

0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:19.000
<v Speaker 1>and convincing enough people to build the factories. So we've

0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:21.240
<v Speaker 1>talked about the manufacturing a little bit. We've talked about

0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:25.040
<v Speaker 1>the choices you have in making a carbon fiber or

0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:28.320
<v Speaker 1>an f RP is that what you call it, fiber

0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:32.040
<v Speaker 1>reinforced plasta. There you go, what applications are there out

0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:36.280
<v Speaker 1>there besides aerospace and what else? We say cars? So

0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:40.360
<v Speaker 1>the big one that really bicycles. Naturally, the bicycles thing

0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:43.560
<v Speaker 1>kind of leads into what sort of nurtured the composite

0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:45.720
<v Speaker 1>industry when it first came out, and that was really

0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:51.480
<v Speaker 1>sporting goods, so like tennis, rackets, golf clubs, bicycles. So

0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:54.080
<v Speaker 1>the applications you have aerospace, you have sporting goods, you

0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:56.760
<v Speaker 1>have automotive. What else we have, Well, there are a

0:12:56.800 --> 0:13:00.360
<v Speaker 1>bunch of companies that are trying to combine composite and

0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.160
<v Speaker 1>three D printing because they think that what that is

0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:05.880
<v Speaker 1>going to do is to allow carbon fiber to move

0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:08.280
<v Speaker 1>into a bunch of sectors that it never could before.

0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:11.199
<v Speaker 1>So an example would be a robotic arm. A robotic

0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:15.720
<v Speaker 1>arm has a ton of small, awkward pieces because the

0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:20.000
<v Speaker 1>manufacturing is so difficult and specific for carbon fiber, you

0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:22.640
<v Speaker 1>wouldn't really want a guy there trying to like lay

0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:24.840
<v Speaker 1>up teeny weeny bits of carbon fiber in order to

0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:27.360
<v Speaker 1>make a gear. But what you could do is three

0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:30.840
<v Speaker 1>D printed. So that's how we think carbon fiber is

0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:34.679
<v Speaker 1>going to move into other sectors is by improving the

0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:38.479
<v Speaker 1>way it's manufactured um and by using a lot more automation.

0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:40.840
<v Speaker 1>Another one you mentioned in the in the report was wind.

0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:43.360
<v Speaker 1>Can you comment a little bit on that. Yeah, so

0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:46.760
<v Speaker 1>the wind industry has been a pretty big user of composites.

0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:51.160
<v Speaker 1>The differences we've been talking mostly about carbon fiber composites,

0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:54.959
<v Speaker 1>whereas what the wind industry uses is mostly glass fiber composites.

0:13:55.960 --> 0:14:00.080
<v Speaker 1>Big difference is that it's much cheaper, So carbon i

0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:04.560
<v Speaker 1>was like twenty, glass fibers like four. It's still pretty light,

0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:07.440
<v Speaker 1>it's just not quite as strong and not quite as stiff.

0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:11.280
<v Speaker 1>But it's been serving the wind industry pretty well, and

0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:14.040
<v Speaker 1>even as their blades have been getting longer, and longer

0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:17.640
<v Speaker 1>and longer. The glass fiber manufacturers have just been adapting

0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:21.960
<v Speaker 1>and they've been using all of these sort of properties

0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:24.120
<v Speaker 1>that you can change by changing the direction of the

0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:27.960
<v Speaker 1>fibers to make it work. So people have been talking

0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:30.240
<v Speaker 1>about when is the industry you're going to move to

0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:33.200
<v Speaker 1>carbon fiber for a long time and the answer is

0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:39.040
<v Speaker 1>they only will once the glass fiber people put their

0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:41.280
<v Speaker 1>hands up and say, this is a limit of what

0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:44.360
<v Speaker 1>we can do. This is kind of the fundamental end

0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:47.600
<v Speaker 1>of the road. Can't squeeze anymore from this material. And

0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:51.400
<v Speaker 1>if I were the glass industry, I would say never.

0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:53.920
<v Speaker 1>I would never say that. Yeah, and that's what they

0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:56.920
<v Speaker 1>do say. So what they've started to say now is Okay,

0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:59.880
<v Speaker 1>maybe you need carbon fiber at this one bit close

0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:02.520
<v Speaker 1>to the base of the wind turbine where it's going

0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:06.800
<v Speaker 1>to connect. Um, Yeah, where the blade connects to the hub.

0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:10.400
<v Speaker 1>But most of it you're good with glass fiber. And

0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:13.360
<v Speaker 1>was a similar thing, you know, when when they were

0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.920
<v Speaker 1>moving from say wood to glass fiber. It was like

0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:22.040
<v Speaker 1>replace things iteratively. That happens so much in materials. I

0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.480
<v Speaker 1>always talk about materials. It's like the performance enhancement of

0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.440
<v Speaker 1>last resort because it means you have to change your supplier,

0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:31.520
<v Speaker 1>you have to change your manufacturing technique. But what it

0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.280
<v Speaker 1>gives you is a step change in performance, and that's

0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:40.760
<v Speaker 1>why people change that or sustainability. Yeah, the landscape, though

0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:42.360
<v Speaker 1>you mentioned you kind of alluded to it. You have

0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:43.960
<v Speaker 1>to change your supplier, you have to change your whole

0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.520
<v Speaker 1>way of doing things. I think we might have saved

0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:49.680
<v Speaker 1>this for another day. But the supply chain for carbon

0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:54.720
<v Speaker 1>fiber can't be that deep, can it. It's very much consolidated,

0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:59.000
<v Speaker 1>so the biggest producers of carbon fiber are really a

0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:03.760
<v Speaker 1>few Japanese is in US companies. The interesting thing is

0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:08.400
<v Speaker 1>that China has actually designated carbon fiber is a strategic industry.

0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:11.640
<v Speaker 1>So while most of the oh I think it was

0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:15.400
<v Speaker 1>in there made plans, so it was a few years

0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:17.560
<v Speaker 1>ago and that's really when we started to see a

0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:21.680
<v Speaker 1>jump in capacity from the Chinese manufacturers. So they have

0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:25.560
<v Speaker 1>big ambitions. Even though most carbon fiber is now made

0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:29.640
<v Speaker 1>in either Japan or the US, if China meets the

0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:32.960
<v Speaker 1>kind of targets that they have for installing new capacity,

0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:37.320
<v Speaker 1>they'll leap frog the Japanese suppliers. That would be huge

0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:41.360
<v Speaker 1>for the market. So right now capacity is about a

0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:46.160
<v Speaker 1>hundred and fifty thousand metric tons per year, and China

0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:49.400
<v Speaker 1>wants to install like one Chinese company wants to install

0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:54.320
<v Speaker 1>sixty thousand metric tons of capacity, so big, big things

0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:59.240
<v Speaker 1>could happen in carbon fiber. Yeah, two more questions. One,

0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:03.000
<v Speaker 1>let's say I'm a benof client. What is the one

0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:05.560
<v Speaker 1>thing that you want me to take away from this report?

0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:09.400
<v Speaker 1>What I want you to take away is carbon fiber

0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.680
<v Speaker 1>is the material of the future, and it's getting better

0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:14.720
<v Speaker 1>in every way. The material of the future or a

0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:21.000
<v Speaker 1>materially a material of the future. Then okay, because we

0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:26.400
<v Speaker 1>can't make computer chips out of it. But yeah, it's

0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:29.880
<v Speaker 1>like in every way I see in my job how

0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:33.439
<v Speaker 1>it's getting better. Manufacturing is getting better. People are starting

0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:36.720
<v Speaker 1>to recycle it in large quantities. Costs are coming down.

0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:39.640
<v Speaker 1>As soon as cost comes down the rest of it,

0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:42.720
<v Speaker 1>it's like a no brainer, right, And the cost will

0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:45.520
<v Speaker 1>come down from more and more companies like this one

0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:47.720
<v Speaker 1>in China building more of it or doing more of

0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:51.320
<v Speaker 1>it exactly. And as much as you can standardize parts,

0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:54.880
<v Speaker 1>that helps a lot. That's what the aerospace industry did.

0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:59.280
<v Speaker 1>They said, we want this tube of this dimension make

0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:01.600
<v Speaker 1>a lot of them for us, and they were able

0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:04.160
<v Speaker 1>to bring costs down to like ten dollars a kill gram.

0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:08.640
<v Speaker 1>So it's hugely important to standardize and make lots. Very cool,

0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:11.600
<v Speaker 1>very cool. Final question, what's next in this, uh this

0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:13.879
<v Speaker 1>research pipeline. So what we're going to be writing on

0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:18.119
<v Speaker 1>next is around company and country strategy. We're going to

0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:21.240
<v Speaker 1>write a note on China's plans for the composites industry,

0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:23.920
<v Speaker 1>and we're going to release some company profiles. To your

0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:26.360
<v Speaker 1>question about the supply chain, we're going to show where

0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:29.639
<v Speaker 1>all the manufacturing capacity is, who's making it, and what

0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:33.160
<v Speaker 1>they're going to do next. Excellent. Thanks for joining us, Julia,

0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:35.359
<v Speaker 1>thanks for having me, and thanks everybody for listening. To

0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:40.639
<v Speaker 1>switch on. Bloomberguin ea F is a service provided by

0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:44.240
<v Speaker 1>Bloomberg Finance LP and its affiliates. This recording does not constitute,

0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:47.840
<v Speaker 1>nor should it be construed as investment advice, investment recommendations,

0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:50.800
<v Speaker 1>or a recommendation as to an investment or other strategy.

0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:53.760
<v Speaker 1>Bloomberguin ea F should not be considered as information sufficient

0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:56.959
<v Speaker 1>upon which to base an investment decision. Neither Bloomberg Finance

0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:00.320
<v Speaker 1>LP nor any of its affiliates makes any representation or

0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:03.200
<v Speaker 1>warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of the information

0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:06.040
<v Speaker 1>contained in this recording, and any liability as a result

0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:25.320
<v Speaker 1>of this recording is expressly disclaimed. H