Bag after bag of powder, snow-white and fine - this is the electronic-grade barium carbonate produced by Hubei Zhanpeng New Materials Company. It looks no different from flour or rice flour, but why is it said to have high technological content?

On the morning of May 17th, Chairman Liu Hongxiang of Zhanpeng Company faced the questions and gave an illustrative metaphor, "A multi-layer ceramic capacitor is like a mini wafer cookie. The ceramic film inside is all at the micrometer level, with as many as thousands of layers. Our company's products are used to make the 'dough' of those layers of cookies."

Liu Hongxiang introduced that multi-layer ceramic capacitors are one of the most widely used passive electronic components in the world, widely used in mobile phones, computers, automobiles, military industries, etc. Especially high-end capacitors have extremely strict requirements for the purity, particle size, particle shape and morphology of raw materials such as barium carbonate and titanium dioxide. He said, "Behind the plain appearance there is actually a lot of story."

Previously, there were no enterprises in China that produced the raw materials for multi-layer ceramic capacitors. In 2004, with a background in chemical engineering and many years of experience in the new materials industry, Liu Hongxiang, along with 20 people, rented a 3,000-square-meter workshop in Pengchang Town and founded Zhanpeng Company, becoming the first person to take the plunge.

By focusing on cultivating a niche field, Zhanpeng Company produces multi-layer ceramic capacitor-specific high-purity ultra-fine electronic-grade barium carbonate and titanium dioxide, with nanometer-level material processes that broke the international monopoly. It is a competing company with Japanese chemical, Fujitsu Titanium Materials, and German Sowvi and other industry leaders, known globally in the industry, with the production scale ranking first in the country, exceeding 80% of the products exported to Japan and South Korea, and once capturing 90% of the market share in Taiwan.

Zhanpeng has been awarded as a national high-tech enterprise, an invisible champion technology small and medium-sized enterprise in the pillar industry, and was awarded the 2020 Annual Innovation Award for Technology-Driven Small and Medium-sized Enterprises at the provincial science and technology innovation conference. Last year, the company achieved sales of 150 million yuan and paid taxes of 15.3 million yuan.

Located in a small town, how did Zhanpeng establish its unique product moat? The person in charge of the high-tech enterprise department of the Science and Technology Bureau of Xiantao City introduced that the company has always emphasized innovation. Liu Hongxiang led the establishment of a 10-person R&D team and also established long-term cooperation with Wuhan University and Wuhan University of Technology. The annual investment in research and development expenses is always above 4% of the sales revenue. Currently, the company has 3 invention patents and 27 utility model patents.

One important point in mastering unique skills is that Zhanpeng's technological research and development follows the market. Liu Hongxiang said, "When facing customer inquiries, the first-round communication personnel dispatched by Zhanpeng are often technical personnel from the R&D department. Through in-depth communication to understand customer needs and diagnose market trends, then guide product upgrades."

With the comprehensive promotion of 5G construction, the rapid increase in the number of high-end smart phones and the acceleration of the "new four modernizations" of automobiles, the demand for multi-layer ceramic capacitors has climbed and the domestic substitution has accelerated, bringing more broad prospects to Zhanpeng. Currently, Zhanpeng has teamed up with domestic leading multi-layer ceramic capacitor companies such as Fenghua High-tech, accelerating efforts in both international and domestic markets.

Leaping forward with the wind, Zhanpeng has initiated the relocation and expansion project, acquiring 120 mu of land in the New Materials Industrial Park of Xiantao City, building new factories, and plans to have one production line ready for operation by the end of this year. Liu Hongxiang said that after the new project is completed, it is expected to produce 30,000 tons of various electronic-grade and nanometer-level functional ceramic powder materials per year, with an annual output value of 700 million yuan. (Full-media reporter Yin Liqun of Xiantao Daily)