Conversion of modified commercial polyacrylonitrile fibers to carbon fibers

Carbon fibres are fabricated from different materials, such as special polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibres, rayon fibres and pitch. Among these three groups of materials, PAN fibres are the most widely used precursor for the manufacture of carbon fibres. The process of fabrication carbon fibres from special PAN fibres includes two steps-, oxidative stabilization at low temperature and carbonization at high temperatures in an inert atmosphere. Due to the high price of raw materials (special PAN fibres), carbon fibres are still expensive. In the present work the main goal is making carbon fibres from low price commercial PAN fibres with modified chemical compositions. The results show that in case of conducting completes stabilization process, it is possible to produce carbon fibres with desirable tensile strength from this type of PAN fibres. To this matter, thermal characteristics of commercial PAN fibres were investigated and based upon the obtained results, with some changes in conventional procedure of stabilization in terms of temperature and time variables;, the desirable conditions of complete stabilization is achieved.