Degradation Behavior of Thermal Stabilized Polyacrylonitrile Fibers

Abstract

In the temperature range of 300-800℃, 40%-50% of the mass lost during the processing of polyacrylonitrile based carbon fiber (PANCF). Understanding the degradation behavior will be valuable in understanding the formation mechanism of pseudo-graphite structure, and providing theoretic basis for producing high performance carbon fiber and increasing the carbonization yield. The simulation of the degradation progress was carried out on the thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA), the results show that there are two degradation steps for PAN fiber stabilized in air, and controlled by cyclization coefficient and oxygen content. The cyclization coefficient and oxygen content are effective to the density of carbon fiber by influencing the degradation behavior, which cause defects in the fiber. The higher cyclization coefficient leads to form less structural defects and higher density of the fiber; on the contrary, the higher oxygen content leads to form more structural defects and lower density of the fiber.

Keywords

• polyacrylonitrile
• stabilization
• degradation
• carbon fiber
• bulk density