Gwangyang Needle Coke Plant produces 63,000 TPA of needle cokes (needle-shaped high-carbon mass created through heat treatment of coal tar, which is a byproduct of coal drying at high temperature) and 28,000 TPA of pitch cokes (created through reheating of ashes remaining after coal tar distillation).
They are the interim materials for value-added carbon products, using coal tar, which is a byproduct generated by POSCO. The plant was built on a site measuring 226,000m2 near Gwangyang Steelworks for PMCTECH, a company to which POSCO FUTURE M, Mitsubishi Corporation, and Mitsubishi Chemical jointly invested shares at the ratio of 60:20:20 respectively. POSCO E&C completed the project on a turn-key basis in 2015 covering the design, procurement, and installation works.
Needle cokes are mainly used as a material for the electrode bars and anode of super-capacitors and secondary cells, which are applied to semiconductors, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), solar cells, and automobile batteries.