Needle coke is one of the important raw materials for artificial graphite,and features with high crystallinity,low coefficient of thermal expansion,good orientation,excellent conductivity and thermal conductivity.It is widely used in the fields such as ultra-high power graphite electrodes for electric furnace steelmaking,special carbon products,and cathodes for lithium-ion batteries.The application scenarios and challenges of needle coke in different fields are analyzed from the perspectives of material synthesis,structural design and performance optimization,and the optimization and improvement schemes are also proposed.