From 1 to 3 September 2026, the 29th China International Composites Industry Technical Expo was held at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai), and our company took part in the show.
This was our second consecutive year at the expo — in September 2025 we participated in the 28th China International Composites Industry Technical Expo.
At the show: leading players and two main themes
The China International Composites Expo (CCE) is organized by China Composites Group Co., Ltd. and held once a year. This edition brought together 977 exhibiting companies from 17 countries and regions.
Under the theme “Thermoplastic, Green Materials, Intelligent Manufacturing — New Heights for Domestic Products”, thermoplastic and green were the two main threads running through the venue.
Exhibitors related to thermoplastic composites reached 115, nearly double the previous edition; green, low-carbon and circular-economy solutions were another key track presented at the show.
On the fiberglass side, China Jushi exhibited flat chopped strands for thermoplastics and new thermoplastic fabrics for applications such as new-energy vehicles and electronics; Taishan Fiberglass presented more than 30 products, with its low-dielectric, low-expansion electronic fabrics aimed at high-end electronics such as AI computing servers and high-frequency, high-speed communication.
Sinoma Science & Technology and its subsidiaries jointly displayed more than 50 core products covering fiberglass, wind turbine blades, hydrogen storage cylinders and other fields.
In carbon fiber, Zhongfu Shenying exhibited what was introduced as the world’s first industrially mass-produced T1200-grade carbon fiber (SYT80), with tensile strength above 8,000 MPa and a hundred-tonne production line built with domestic equipment; Hengshen presented M65J and M60J high-modulus carbon fibers, with HM65 modulus exceeding 640 GPa for aerospace structures such as satellites and high-altitude aircraft.
Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical showcased more than a hundred products under the theme “Wet-process Chinese Core — Exploring New Heights in Composites”, reporting a breakthrough in wet-process T1000 small-tow carbon fiber with 60K and 120K large tows ready for mass production; Guangwei Composites brought TZ300, TZ700S, TZ800S, T1100 and other high-performance carbon fibers and prepregs.
These exhibits point in the same direction: domestic high-performance fibers are moving from technical breakthroughs to large-scale production, and thermoplastic materials are entering industrialization from being a research hotspot.
Recycling: the direction the expo kept emphasizing
What matters most to our business is the weight that composites recycling and reuse carried at this edition.
One set of figures was quoted again and again in industry exchanges: according to 2023 statistics from the Fiber Composite Recycling Branch of the China National Resources Recycling Association, China’s cumulative thermoset composite production has exceeded 97 million tonnes, with more than 300,000 tonnes of offcuts and scrap generated each year, more than 4 million tonnes of retired composites accumulated, and other composite solid waste growing by 1 to 2 million tonnes annually; by 2035, more than 90,000 wind turbines will be due for replacement in the wind-power sector alone.
Among the technical directions presented at the show, carbon fiber recycling is moving from “downcycling” back into the “high-end supply chain” — the Yangtze River Delta Carbon Fiber and Composites Technology Innovation Center (CCIC) uses mild catalytic degradation to achieve de-bonding and separation while preserving the original fiber length and mechanical properties, and re-spins the recovered fibers into continuous tows that are then woven into carbon fiber fabric, directly usable in automotive lightweighting, rail transit and other applications.
GRP (fiberglass) recycling is moving from “crushing it into filler” toward functional materials — directed chemical depolymerization and related technologies have achieved resin degradation rates above 99%, carbon fiber recovery rates above 96% and strength loss below 5%, while the resin is converted into high-value monomers such as bisphenol A; an overseas team has developed rapid joule heating that converts waste GRP into silicon carbide within seconds, for use in lithium-ion battery anodes and other fields.
Resin matrices are also turning from “waste” into chemical feedstock, depolymerized into polyols, bisphenol A and other chemicals that re-enter the material loop — as researcher Hou Xianglin of the Shanxi Institute of Coal Chemistry put it: glass fiber is the rebar and resin is the cement; conventional recycling takes only the rebar and wastes the cement, and resin-matrix recycling is exactly the missing link.
The economics of recycling are therefore changing: according to a life-cycle assessment by the Japan Carbon Fiber Manufacturer Association based on measured data from Toray and other companies, producing virgin carbon fiber consumes up to 318.2 MJ/kg with nearly 20 kg of carbon emissions per kilogram, while recovered fibers far undercut virgin fiber on both energy and carbon; downstream applications such as “battery lower housings compression-molded and injection-molded in one piece from recycled carbon-fiber thermoplastic composites” show that recycled materials are returning to structural, high-value uses.
During the show, Yue Zhen, our overseas sales manager, attended the recycling-themed exchange meeting and discussed recycling process routes, recycled-material specifications and equipment applications with industry experts and technical representatives.
At this edition we exchanged with customers from 22 countries and regions.
From 13 at the 28th edition to 22 this time, the number of countries and regions covered by our customer conversations keeps growing, and so does the attention and recognition that domestic and overseas customers give to composites recycling and processing equipment.
What this means for us
The direct meaning of what we saw on site: recycled materials are moving from “downgraded filler” back into the “high-end supply chain”, and downstream requirements on recycled powder fineness, classification precision and fiber-property retention are rising — on both physical-grinding and chemical-depolymerization routes, the value of equipment in the recycling and processing stage is being re-evaluated by the industry.
It should be noted that chemical depolymerization and mild catalytic degradation are the technical routes of industry research institutes; what Weida focuses on is physical grinding equipment — different routes impose different requirements on front-end pretreatment and fiber morphology, and that is exactly where recycling and processing equipment comes into play.
What we aim to do is deepen and solidify our equipment in this recycling and processing stage — not simple waste disposal, but turning waste back into specified, valuable raw material.
What we build: composites recycling and processing equipment
Founded in 2004, Zhanjiang Weida Machinery Industrial Co., Ltd. integrates development, design, manufacturing, sales and service, with composites crushing and milling equipment as one of its five product lines.
In the niche field of composites recycling and processing, we were among the earlier manufacturers to focus on recycling equipment. Our main products include carbon fiber milling machines (ZFS series), fiberglass milling machines, GRP milling machines and matching screening and conveying equipment.
The equipment handles materials covering carbon fiber, fiberglass, GRP, basalt fiber, aramid fiber and other composites, with processes from crushing and milling to recycled reuse, and complete production lines configured to customer requirements.
On the technical route, we adopt a low-temperature physical grinding process, with a liquid-cooled temperature control system, “material-grinding-material” grinding method and blade-free anti-tangling design; output fineness is adjustable from 3 mm down to 400 mesh.
The equipment has been applied in wind turbine blade recycling, graded reuse of fiberglass waste, carbon fiber offcut processing and other scenarios, holds CE certification, and has been exported to more than 100 countries and regions.
Two years in review and the next step
Across the two editions, the industry’s discussion of composites recycling has become more concrete year by year; our equipment direction has not changed, and on-site observations keep feeding back into product and process iteration.
The 30th China International Composites Industry Technical Expo will be held from 8 to 10 September 2027, and we have already put it on our schedule.
If you are evaluating composites recycling and processing equipment, welcome to talk with us about machine selection and process solutions.
