Australia is now a home to one of the few carbon fibre production plants in the world with the launch of a new wet spinning line in Geelong city, developed by the Government’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and University of Deakin.
Very few companies are capable of developing their own carbon fibre as it’s labour-intensive and costly. It’s being believed now that this breakthrough set up will help see carbon fibre prices plummet, with developers claiming to have created a lighter and stronger composite at significantly lower costs.
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Director of CSIRO Future Industries, Dr. Anita Hill said, “The development was an important milestone. This facility means Australia can carry out research across the whole carbon fibre value chain: from molecules, to polymers, to fibre, to finished composite parts,” adding, “Together with Deakin, we’ve created something that could disrupt the entire carbon fibre manufacturing industry.”
The developers have used a proprietary wet spinning process with precursor chemicals to create strands of fibres thinner than human hair, which are wound onto a spool to create a tape and then carbonised. To do this, the fibres are heated to a very high temperature without coming in contact with oxygen to keep them away from burning. The high temperature causes the atoms in the fibres to vibrate violently until most of the non-carbon atoms are expelled.
90 per cent of the carbon fibres produced in the development process are made from polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibres and the remaining 10 per cent are made from rayon or petroleum pitch.
Bharat Tex Special Report 2026 
