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For a long period of time, Taiwan has been a powerhouse in the development of composite materials. Numerous industries including household goods, sports, energy, IT product, automotive, construction and medical industries in Taiwan are using the latest composite materials available and exploring more applications for advanced composite materials.
A few years ago, several internationally-known Taiwan manufacturers used carbon fiber to produce lightweight bicycles, cars, IT products and components which Taiwan specialized in. Bicycle manufacturers such as Giant and Merida, as well as research-intensive carbon fiber manufacturers like UHT, had gained momentum in acquiring exclusive patented technologies.
With recent emerging trend pointing toward increasing use of glass-reinforced fiber, producers of high-end products in the manufacturing and IT industries of Taiwan are integrating demand for glass-reinforced fiber into their product development plans.
Due to the particular procedure used in production, the energy cost accounts for 40% of the total cost of producing glass-reinforced fiber. Although Taiwan does not have the advantage of cheap energy source compared to its counterpart China which has rich natural gas reserves, there are other strengths that the island are ready to exploit in catching on this big development in the Asia Pacific.
Taiwan’s manufacturers have solid technology in fiber, textile, plastics materials and machine tools. Bridging the industries together with the complete facility in the manufacturing clusters and the tight connections of upstream-downstream relations are predicted to make Taiwan the frontier of the innovation for new composite materials, very much like how the machineries and IT industries flourished on the island.For instance, Taiwan's Formosa Plastics Group has become the leading manufacturer of glass reinforced fiber for electronics used globally, accounting for more than 20% of the overall global production.