Located in Lyon, France, Mamont Industries is a company specializing in the production of high-grade industrial film materials, and their film products cover various fields such as aviation, automotive, home appliances, and microelectronics. In the past, the raw materials used to make the company's industrial films were from local European chemical material companies, but recently, a new material that has appeared in the East has begun to scratch the ears and fidget the company's executives.

"Nicole, do you ask clearly, can the Chinese provide us with enough graphene, I don't want to stop production after our product is developed due to raw material limitations." Solem, the company's president, asked anxiously in his office to Nicole, the purchasing manager.

"I've asked so many times...... "Nichole said timidly," Nichole said, "and they reassured me repeatedly, that ...... Enough. ”

"What does it mean to be enough!" "It is rumored that the daily output of graphene of China's Daqin Group is only 5 kilograms, while our company Mameng alone expects to use at least 10 kilograms per day. Even if they use all their capacity to supply us, it's not enough, haven't you confirmed this with them? ”

Nicol said: "I asked, and the sales department of Daqin Group said that the statement of 5 kilograms per day is not accurate, and their output will be more than this figure. However, as for their real production capacity, they refused to disclose ......, and by the way, they said that they would send someone to communicate with us. ”

"What do you mean?" Solem asked, surprised.

"What they mean is that they have the ability to expand their production capacity, but they will only do so until they have signed a stable supply contract with us. Also, it's not enough for us to order from them, they need to be in contact with more companies. Then determine whether to expand production capacity. And to get that assurance, they need to talk to us in person. Nichol said helplessly.

With the prominent position of the Marmon company, it is indeed a frustrating thing to be pushed around if you want to buy some raw materials from a Chinese company. But the rules in the mall are like this, the company with scarce resources is the uncle, and the Marmon company also has a big name in front of its customers. Now it's just a matter of offense and defense.

After the discovery of graphene and its preparation process announced by the Anhe Institute of Materials, Mammon was also invited to send a technical team to Hongze to study this emerging material and see if it could be applied to its own products. Initially, the company sent an ordinary technical manager with two average assistants. After arriving in Hongze, the technical manager made a preliminary analysis of the graphene samples provided by the Institute of Materials, and immediately reported to the company, claiming that this material was of epoch-making significance. Companies must pay special attention.

When Solham got the news, he immediately sent CTO Florian to China with several technical backbones. There, Florian met many familiar peers, all of whom were technical authorities in some of the world's most prestigious companies, some of which even competed with Marmon's products.

The Anhe Institute of Materials has opened the testing room to all technical teams, and has also sent some teachers and students who have participated in graphene research in the early stage to work with these technical teams. Florian received a lot of inspiration from the experts at the Institute of Materials and quickly discovered the potential of this new material for use in the Marmon product line. He had to admit that this new material was indeed fascinating. If Marmon misses the development and application of this material, it will be at a disadvantage in the market in the future.

Qin Hai engaged in this open test. It's really vicious. General new materials, from the advent to the wide application, how to have a few years, these time is the run-in period of each downstream enterprises, but also for the material manufacturers to provide a buffer period to form and expand production capacity. But this time, Qin Hai released the materials. Immediately, a race for the application of materials was launched. All large enterprises have come to Hongze, and a kind of competitive pressure has been formed between each other, making each company feel that time is running out.

After completing part of the test work, Florian returned to France with dozens of grams of samples purchased from Daqin Group, and then began to develop various new products. He and his team have successively developed industrial sealing films based on graphene raw materials, display laminates, aviation anti-corrosion films, and so on. These products have good market prospects and can make Marmon's business leap to a new level.

Nowadays, the development of various products has come to an end, just waiting for enough raw materials to carry out small-scale and pilot tests, and then enter full-scale production. But the problem arises, according to the expectation of the market, the company needs about 10 kilograms of graphene raw materials every day to ensure the supply of products, but Daqin Group has never clearly said how much graphene it can provide to the company.

"Warren Company, is there any news?" Solham asked Nichol.

Warren is a well-known chemical materials company in Germany and one of the main raw material suppliers of Marmon. In terms of scale, Warren Company can be equivalent to dozens of Daqin Group, and its technical strength is beyond the reach of Daqin Group. Solham believes that if Warren can produce graphene, then the production capacity problem is not worth worrying about at all, and such an established company can easily expand its production capacity to ten or a hundred times.

What Solem can think of, Nichole can certainly think of. However, in response to Solham's question, Nicol could only smile wryly and shake his head: "I asked, and Warren said that they also paid attention to the market prospects of graphene, and invested a lot of manpower and material resources in the development of the preparation process, but so far there has been no breakthrough." They estimate that it will be two years before a new preparation process is developed and sufficient production capacity is formed. ”

"Haven't the Chinese already introduced two preparation processes? Why don't they buy process patents from the Chinese? Solham blurted out.

"I heard that the Chinese are very expensive to license patents, which will make Warren's products completely uncompetitive, so they prefer to develop new preparation processes themselves," Nicol said. ”

"It's not because of licensing fees, it's because Warren is unwilling to pay patent fees to a Chinese company that they've never heard of, and they have their pride." Solham broke the sky with a word.

There is nothing wrong with Solham's speculation about Warren Company, but he doesn't know that Warren Company has not heard of Daqin Group, but has once planted a heel in front of Daqin Group, and it can be regarded as a small grudge, so he held his breath and had to come up with his own craftsmanship. If you want to talk about this grudge, it was a few years ago, when dealing with the French beach oil spill, the water purification membrane developed by Daqin Group beat similar products of Warren Company, and made Warren Company lose face. Since then, Warren has listed Daqin Group as a significant potential competitor.

With the technical level of the modern chemical industry, after understanding the basic properties of graphene, it is not difficult to develop a new preparation process, but it will take some time. Warren is a veteran chemical company, and it has strong technical strength in this regard, which is fully capable of solving the problem of graphene preparation. But the problem is that the application of graphene is developing too fast, leaving no time for Warren to develop the process. Like the Marmon company, the product has been developed, just waiting for the graphene raw materials to be put into the pot, and the graphene preparation process of Warren company is still in a stage of proof of concept, how can this be in time?

"At present, apart from the Chinese, the only one who can be counted on is Japan's Shinzuka Chemical." "Yoshiki Morioka, the sales manager of Shintsuka Chemical, contacted me and said that they could provide us with sufficient graphene raw materials in three months, and the price was more than 30% cheaper than that of the Chinese. ”

"Niizuka Chemical, well, it seems that I can only trust the capabilities of the Japanese." "Although they are not as skilled as Warren, they are much better than those of the lazy Germans." ”

"I also have some confidence in Shinzuka Chemical, but they say their products will be cheaper than the Chinese, and I can't believe it," Nicol said. I consulted with Mr. Florian, and he said that the chemical vapor deposition production process currently owned by Daqin Group is the theoretically lowest-cost graphene production process. If Daqin Group's production capacity is not only 5 kilograms per day as they themselves say, but can reach more, then their prices will definitely be much lower than now. The new technology developed by the Japanese in a hurry may be difficult to compete with them. ”

Solem smiled: "This is not something we need to care about, it is very beneficial for us to have the Japanese compete with the Chinese." I think we need to send a clear message to the Chinese that the market demand for graphene is very large, and induce them to expand their production capacity and compete with the Japanese. In this way, the price of graphene can be greatly reduced, which is beneficial for our products to go to the market. ”

"I know, and I do." Nichol nodded.

The two were chatting, and the office secretary walked in and said to Nichol: "Mr. Nicole, three Chinese came outside, saying that they had made an appointment with you." By the way, they said they were here to talk about the supply of graphene. ”

"Oh, the Chinese are finally here!" Nichol's eyes lit up, "Invite them to the negotiation room!" (To be continued......)