China will roll out a series of projects to promote new
materials including graphene development and application, the
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said
in January.
This is part of the "Made in China 2025" initiative, which
the government will implement over the next five years. This
series of reforms is set to adjust industry structure, and to
improve and upgrade Chinese manufacturing.
Over the next five years, China will strengthen research in
graphene, metallic and polymer material, shape memory alloy,
self-repairing materials, intelligent biomimetic and
metamaterials, liquid metals and new low-cost superconductors
in extreme temperatures, according to MIIT.
The country wants to accelerate breakthroughs in these new
materials research and gradually expand their end-use
applications.
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| Graphene film on
silicon substrate.
(Source: Graphenea) |
The government will expand its existing support for the new
material industry, by implementing favourable tax rates for
high-tech enterprises. In addition, Beijing will also increase
funding for this industry, and encourage private investments
through crowd-funding, venture capital funds or private equity
in the development of new materials. Finally, it will support
qualified new material businesses to float in domestic or
foreign exchanges. New compensation mechanisms through
insurance could also be developed to support the first trial of
new materials applications.
China will also construct about 20 new material production
and application demonstration platforms across a number of
industries, such as integrated circuits, new display, large
aircraft, new energy vehicle, high-speed railway, nuclear,
marine engineering etc. At the same time, the initiative will
also focus on downstream application and development.
In aerospace, the government hopes to speed up the use of
special rare earth alloys and also in the application of
titanium alloy material.
China will also support developments in energy-saving
automotive and electric-vehicle. It will conduct studies on
advance battery materials, including the safety and performance
consistency of lithium, nickel, cobalt and lithium-manganese
based composite material and silicon carbide composite
material.
There will also be further developments in rare earth
materials in the environment protection and energy saving
industries.