Abstract
The thermal stabilization of polyacrylonitrile fibers (FPAN) is one of the most important steps in the production of carbon fibers (CFs). In this paper, new precursor polymers from PAN have been synthesized with different chemical characteristics using a solution polymerization, and FPAN was obtained using an unconventional wet spinning system in the drying and collapsing steps. The effect of different operation conditions, comonomers, and termonomers on the properties of precursor polymers, polymerization reactions, mechanical properties, structural characteristics, and stabilization of the FPAN was studied and analyzed. FTIR and optical microscopy were used to analyze structural changes of FPAN in the thermal stabilization. The impact of the chemical composition of the precursor polymers on the physicochemical characteristics of FPAN and their behavior in the thermal stabilization process were evaluated. In particular, itaconic acid termonomer improved the tensile strength of the fibers from 8.07 to 16.87 cN/dtex, and the extent stabilization increased from 1.81 to 4.6. FTIR indicated that the reaction of stabilization of the terpolymer developed was initiated at a lower temperature compared to that of a commercial precursor polymer.
Highlights
The applications of carbon materials have continuously increased due to their properties and they include nanotechnology, porous materials, films, energy, and electronics
This paper reports the analysis of different terpolymerization systems to develop terpolymers of PAN (TPAN) as precursors of carbon fibers (CFs) and using experimental optimization based on the Taguchi method for the total conversion of monomers, average molecular weight, and the extent of stabilization for the terpolymers obtained in solution polymerization reactions
The parameters Conversion rate (Conv), Mv, and extent of stabilization (Es) of TPAN synthesized by solution polymerization can be controlled by the concentration of the monomers, stirring rate, reaction temperature, and time of the systems of terpolymerization [12, 14,15,16, 28, 37]
Summary
The applications of carbon materials have continuously increased due to their properties and they include nanotechnology, porous materials, films, energy, and electronics. Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) has been recognized as one of the most important precursors of carbon fiber (CFs) [1]. More than 90% of the carbon fibers (CFs) are made from precursors based on PAN [1,2,3,4,5,6]. The quality of the precursors contributes significantly to define the properties of the resulting CFs [7]. PAN homopolymers have been rarely used as a CFs precursor due to its poor spinnability and thermal stabilization. To attend this problem, several copolymers and terpolymers of acrylonitrile were developed and used as precursors [8]
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