Industry Background: Sintering of precursors for lithium-ion battery anode materials (including carbon electrode materials, graphene, etc.)

Core Summary

By 2025, the global lithium-ion battery anode material industry, driven by both power and energy storage, will enter a critical period of simultaneous "mass production" and "technological leaps." The market will exhibit three core characteristics: artificial graphite penetration exceeding 90%, accelerated industrialization of silicon-based anodes, and deepening supply chain integration.

Against this backdrop, the production process of anode materials—especially the carbonization, graphitization, and coating sintering of precursors—will become crucial in determining product consistency, energy density, and cost competitiveness. Advanced vacuum sintering furnace technology, due to its precise control over atmosphere, vacuum, and temperature field at high temperatures, is transforming from "auxiliary equipment" into "core process equipment" for building technological barriers for enterprises.

Chapter 2 Market Shipment Volume and Structure Analysis

2.1 Global and China Shipments

In 2025, global anode material production reached 3.115 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 43.7%; shipments reached 3.0615 million tons. China's market shipments reached 2.922 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 38.1%, increasing its global share to 99.0%. The continued growth in shipments directly drove demand for large-scale, high-efficiency sintering equipment.

2.2 Shipment Structure: Artificial Graphite Dominates, Silicon-Based Anodes Experience Explosive Growth

In terms of product structure, artificial graphite, with its comprehensive advantages in cycle life, rate performance, and cost control, has further increased its market share, creating a significant substitution effect on natural graphite.

Artificial Graphite: China's market shipments reached 2.54 million tons, accounting for 86.9%. The coating carbonization process of artificial graphite requires high-precision, high-uniformity vacuum sintering furnaces to ensure the integrity and consistency of the coating layer.

Natural graphite: Shipments reached approximately 260,000 tons, accounting for 12.5% of the market. Its high-temperature purification process after spheroidization places higher demands on the atmosphere control capabilities of the vacuum sintering furnace.

Silicon-based anodes: Global shipments reached 8,600 tons in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 67%, making it the fastest-growing segment. This is mainly due to the increased proportion of silicon-based anodes in consumer electronics and their trial application in power batteries (especially 46mm cylindrical batteries). Due to their high expansion rate, silicon-based materials require extremely high precision in precursor nano-sizing and carbon coating uniformity, which directly relies on advanced vacuum sintering equipment to achieve a dense and uniform coating layer.

Chapter 3 Price Trends and Market Size：Cost Reduction Pressures Spur Equipment Upgrades

3.1 Price Trends: Bottoming Out and Rebounding, Returning to Rationality

The average annual price of anode materials in 2025 remained around 35,000 yuan/ton. After two years of price wars, the industry's profit margins were compressed to the limit, making "cost reduction and efficiency improvement" the lifeline for all anode material companies.

3.2 Cost Reduction Paths

With raw material costs (needle coke, petroleum coke) stabilizing, processing costs have become the core of companies' differentiated competition. Among these, the energy consumption and yield of carbonization and graphitization processes directly affect the cost per ton.

In this context, vacuum sintering furnaces with low energy consumption design, high temperature uniformity, and long maintenance cycles can directly help companies reduce unit product power consumption and maintenance costs, and improve yield. This makes the equipment itself a "strategic asset" for anode material companies to build cost advantages, rather than a simple fixed asset investment.

Chapter 4 Competitive Landscape: The Equipment Barriers of Leading Companies

4.1 Overall Landscape

In 2025, the global CR3 (top three companies' market share) for anode materials was approximately 49.5%, and the CR6 (top six companies' market share) was approximately 73.0%. BTR, ShanShanTech, and ShineZoom collectively held half of the Chinese market.

4.2 Shipments and market share of leading companies (China market)

In their capacity expansion and technological upgrades in 2025, the aforementioned leading companies generally adopted advanced vacuum sintering furnaces as standard equipment for new production lines to ensure batch stability of high-end products. This indicates that the technological level of equipment has become an entry threshold for anode material companies to enter the first tier and maintain their market share in the high-end market.

4.3 Market Segmentation of Artificial Graphite and Silicon-Based Anodes

Artificial Graphite: ShanShanTech maintains its leading position thanks to its strong technological foundation; ShineZoom, ShangTai Tech, and others follow closely behind.

Silicon-Based Anodes: BTR maintains its number one market share; Zhejiang LiChen, IOPSLION, and other companies have demonstrated outstanding performance in product shipments and technological innovation, becoming important forces in the market.

Chapter 5 Analysis of the upstream of the industrial chain

5.1 Raw Materials: Needle Coke, Petroleum Coke, and Natural Graphite

In 2025, needle coke and petroleum coke, as core raw materials for artificial graphite, experienced significant price fluctuations. This prompted companies to increase their investment in raw material pretreatment and integrated artificial graphite production. The raw material pretreatment stage placed higher demands on the atmosphere uniformity and temperature control precision of the low-temperature carbonization furnace.

5.2 Core Process—Graphitization

Graphitization is the core energy-consuming process in anode material production and a key to cost control. In 2025, the industry exhibited two major trends:

1. Continuous graphitization technology accelerated its penetration, replacing traditional intermittent graphitization and reducing energy consumption.

2. Integrated design of graphitization and carbonization processes became a major cost-reduction method for leading companies.

In the aforementioned integrated production line, the Vacuum Sintering Furnace, as a key equipment connecting the precursor and graphitization processes, directly determines the overall capacity utilization and comprehensive cost of the entire production line due to its continuous operation capability, atmosphere protection effect, and stable operating cycle at high temperatures. Equipment suppliers are no longer merely equipment providers, but have become important partners in enterprise process optimization and production line design.

Chapter 6 Outlook and Trends

Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, the anode material industry will exhibit three major trends, directly defining the upgrade direction of vacuum sintering equipment:

Surge in Demand for High-End Products: The penetration rate of fast-charging anodes (4C and above) is expected to exceed 25%, ushering in the era of silicon-based anodes operating at tens of thousands of tons. This places more stringent demands on the precision, cleanliness, and process reproducibility of sintering equipment than ever before.

Accelerated Overseas Production Capacity Deployment: Influenced by geopolitical trade, Chinese anode companies are accelerating the construction of overseas factories. This requires equipment with higher levels of automation and lower reliance on maintenance to adapt to overseas human resources and management environments.

Green and Low-Carbon Manufacturing: With increasingly stringent "dual-carbon" policies, unit energy consumption in anode production has become a mandatory indicator. Low-energy-consumption, high-efficiency Vacuum Sintering Furnaces will become a key support for companies to reduce carbon emissions and gain access to international customers.

Conclusion:

In 2025, the lithium-ion battery anode material industry has shifted from simple capacity competition to comprehensive competition based on technology, cost, and quality. In this process, the performance of the Vacuum Sintering Furnace, a key process equipment, directly impacts the final performance, production cost, and delivery stability of the anode materials.

For anode material companies, choosing advanced vacuum sintering equipment essentially means choosing:

Higher consistency to ensure the yield of fast-charging anodes and silicon-based anodes;

Lower overall energy consumption to build a long-term cost advantage;

Stronger process expansion capabilities to adapt to the uncertainties of future technological iterations.

As an equipment company deeply rooted in the Vacuum Sintering field, we are committed to providing the lithium-ion battery anode material industry with more efficient, precise, and reliable core process equipment through continuous technological innovation, working with industry chain partners to drive the industry towards a new stage of high-quality development.