Spain-based Montefibre Carbon recently received EUR 5.6 million from the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Trade & Tourism as part of the country’s REINDUS (Reindustrialization and Strengthening of Industrial Competitiveness) initiative. The funding will facilitate the company’s transition from producing textile acrylic fiber to polyacrylonitrile (PAN) precursor for conversion to carbon fiber (precursor fiber).
Montefibre Carbon produces large and ultra-large precursor fiber for use in high-volume, cost-sensitive mass markets, such as automotive, marine and wind energy applications.
This financing facility provided by the Spanish government is part of a EUR 7.5 million investment in the expansion of Montefibre’s 302,656-square-meter factory in Miranda de Ebro.
All of the transformations of the Miranda de Ebro plant are carried out with Montefibre Carbon’s proprietary technology, which is based on the original development of precursor fiber by Monsanto at the end of the 1950s in Knoxville, Tenn. (still used by carbon fiber producers), but has been improved through more than 20 years of research into PAN precursors by the Montefibre group.
