Feature Empowerment and Scene Innovation —— PC Sheets Usher in a New Era of Domestic New Material Applications

With the continuous breakthroughs in domestic new material technology, polycarbonate (PC) sheets, relying on their comprehensive characteristics of safety, efficiency and environmental protection, have gradually broken the application barriers of traditional materials, realized scene expansion in many fields such as civil engineering projects, high-end manufacturing and green buildings, and promoted the industry to enter a new stage of high-quality development. It is reported that the domestic output of PC sheets increased by 10.3% year-on-year in 2025, of which the proportion of high-end characteristic products rose to 38%. Domestic PC sheets are rewriting the global new material market pattern with their differentiated advantages.

As a high-performance thermoplastic material, the core competitiveness of PC sheets lies in their irreplaceable diverse characteristics, which is also the key to their wide penetration into various industries. Compared with traditional glass, PC sheets are only half the weight, but have much higher impact resistance — their impact strength can reach 200-300 times that of ordinary glass. Even when subjected to severe impact, they only produce tough deformation without breaking and splashing, fundamentally solving the potential safety hazards of traditional transparent materials. This feature has made them stand out in urban civil engineering projects. At present, the canopies of pedestrian overpasses and bus shelters in many domestic cities have been batch-adopted with PC sheets, which not only reduces the structural load of municipal facilities, but also improves the safety of pedestrian traffic. Their service life can reach more than 15 years, greatly reducing municipal maintenance costs.

The perfect combination of high light transmittance and weather resistance has brought new vitality to PC sheets in outdoor scenes and green agriculture fields. The light transmittance of high-quality PC sheets can reach more than 90%, close to that of high-quality float glass, and the transmitted light is soft and not dazzling, avoiding glare caused by direct strong light. At the same time, PC sheets treated with special UV coating can effectively block more than 98% of ultraviolet rays, and will not turn yellow, crack, age or have other phenomena when exposed to sun and rain for a long time, adapting to different climatic environments. In the field of smart agriculture, PC hollow sheets are widely used in the construction of intelligent greenhouses. They can not only provide sufficient natural light for crop growth, but also resist extreme high temperatures, severe cold and heavy rain impacts, helping farmers achieve four-season high yields. At present, the utilization rate of PC sheets in domestic intelligent greenhouses has exceeded 65%.

The dual advantages of energy conservation, environmental protection and processability are in line with the current "dual carbon" goals and industrial upgrading needs, becoming the core support for PC sheets to expand the high-end market. The thermal conductivity of PC sheets is extremely low, only 1/4 of that of ordinary glass. Using them as building lighting materials can effectively reduce indoor air conditioning and heating energy consumption, help buildings achieve energy conservation and consumption reduction goals, and meet the green building evaluation standards. In addition, PC sheets can be recycled and reused with a recycling rate of more than 80%, effectively reducing plastic waste pollution and practicing the concept of circular economy. In the field of high-end manufacturing, relying on good processability, PC sheets can be cut, bent and injected into various shapes, widely used in medical device casings, intelligent terminal protective screens, new energy equipment accessories, etc., meeting the personalized design needs of different products.

It is worth noting that domestic PC sheet enterprises are continuously tapping the potential of material characteristics through technological innovation, promoting products to upgrade to high-end and functionalization. At present, leading domestic enterprises have successfully developed special PC sheets such as fire-retardant, anti-static and anti-fog dripping, filling the gap of domestic high-end products and breaking the technological monopoly of foreign enterprises. Data shows that the export volume of domestic PC sheets increased by 12.7% year-on-year in 2025, being exported to Southeast Asia, Europe and other regions, and the core characteristic indicators have reached the international advanced level.

Industry experts said that the characteristic advantages of PC sheets are highly consistent with the upgrading needs of various industries, and the future market space is broad. But at the same time, the industry still needs to overcome difficulties such as refined raw material processing and mass production of high-end functional products. It is expected that in the next 5 years, the domestic PC sheet market size will maintain an average annual growth rate of more than 7%. With the continuous in-depth development of characteristic research and development and the continuous expansion of application scenarios, PC sheets will gradually replace traditional glass, ordinary plastics and other materials, becoming one of the most promising categories in the new material industry, and injecting strong momentum into the high-quality development of the domestic new material industry.