Rheological and LASER additives for higher efficiency in producing poly(acrylonitrile)-based carbon fibers

• Rheologische und LASER-Additive für die effizientere Herstellung von Polyacrylnitril-basierten Carbonfasern

Herbert, Christian; Möller, Martin (Thesis advisor); Pich, Andrij (Thesis advisor)

Aachen (2016)
Dissertation / PhD Thesis

Dissertation, RWTH Aachen, 2016

Abstract

This work is based on the NRW Ziel2 ‘Megacarbon’ project which aims for the more resource efficient production of carbon fibers (CF) for the automotive market. In cooperation with the Dralon GmbH in Dormagen a CF precursor with properties at least equal to the industry reference fiber Bluestar was developed and used in fiber spinning experiments. For the improvement of the spinning process a hyperbranched, rheological additive was synthesized for the decrease of dynamic viscosity over a broad sheer rate range. The decreased dynamic viscosity would allow for a higher amount of polymer percentage in the spinning solution resulting in a higher density of the fiber and less usage of the solvent DMF. For the energy cost reduction of CF production thermal treatment with near infra-red (NIR) LASER for direct energy transfer into the precursor fiber has been examined. To achieve the required control of the thermal treatment a defined amount of NIR absorbing carbon black particles was homogeneously dispersed in a polymer solution. The synthesized hyperbranched, rheological additive was successfully wet-spun with a PAN-based polymer in DMF at the laboratory spinning setup at Dralon.