Cellulose–lignin composite carbon fibers have shown to be a potential environmentally benign alternative the traditional polyacrylonitrile precursor. With associated cost reduction, cellulose–lignin are an attractive light-weight material for, e.g. wind power and automobile manufacturing. The fiber tenacity, tensile modulus creep resistance is in part determined by content molecular orientation...

FMLs are considered by many industries, including the aerospace industry, due to their important advantages such as high strength, low weight, corrosion and moisture resistance, good fatigue properties, and so on. The purpose of the present study is to improve the mechanical properties of the panel through the addition of nanoscale by improving the structure of the FML. For this purpose, the pe...

Presented here is an investigation into the successful wet spinning and carbonization of a low-cost textile grade (TG-PAN) polyacrylonitrile (PAN) polymer blended with more traditional carbon fiber (CF-PAN) precursor. Both were performed using continuous pilot scale facilities directly analogous to larger industrial processes which provide validation for further scale-up. The precursor fibers (...

A modified coaxial electrospinning process was used to prepare composite nanofibrous mats from a poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) solution with the addition of different cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) as the sheath fluid and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) solution as the core fluid. This study investigated the conductivity of the as-spun solutions that increased significantly with increasing CNCs addit...

Large efforts have been made over the last 40 years to increase the mechanical strength of polyacrylonitrile (PAN)-based carbon fibers (CFs) using a variety of chemical or physical protocols. In this paper, we report a new method to increase CFs mechanical strength using a slow heating rate during the carbonization process. This new approach increases both the carbon sp(3) bonding and the numbe...

Carbon nanotubes are being widely studied as a reinforcing element in high-performance composites and fibers at high volume fractions. However, problems with nanotube processing, alignment, and non-optimal stress transfer between the nanotubes and surrounding matrix have so far prevented full utilization of their superb mechanical properties in composites. Here, we present an alternative use of...

Drawing to change the structural properties and cyclization behaviors of the polyacrylonitrile (PAN) chains in crystalline and amorphous regions is carried out on PAN and PAN/carbon nanotube (CNT) composite fibers. Various characterization methods including Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, X-ray diffraction and thermal gravimetric analysis are used to ...