(604a) Rheology, Processing and Mechanical Properties of Carbon Fiber Precursor Polymer

Carbon fibers are made by pyrolysis of polymer precursor fibers, and all the high-strength carbon fibers are currently manufactured from polyacrylonitrile (PAN) based precursor fibers due to their excellent mechanical properties. However, currently the precursor fibers are made using a solvent spinning process which involves the use of toxic solvents, and is also a slow process, contributing to the high cost of carbon fibers. In addition, the process often causes the formation of voids in the precursor fibers, which weakens the mechanical properties of the finished product of carbon fibers. We report a new PAN-based quad polymer, which can be used in high through-put melt spinning process to produce the precursor fibers at low manufacturing cost. The new quad polymer used for the fibers is synthesized from acrylonitrile (AN), vinylimidazole (VIM), methyl acrylate (MA), and acrylic acid (AA). The quad polymer exhibits a glass transition temperature, which allows it to be extrusion-processible to produce the precursor fibers. In this paper, we report experimental results on the thermal, rheological, and mechanical properties of the quad polymer and precursor fibers made using the quad polymer as well as the carbon fibers made from the precursor fibers.