Thermal, chemical and morphological properties of carbon fibres derived from chemically pre-treated wool fibres

摘要

In this work, the feasibility of using wool fibre as a carbon fibre precursor was explored as well as whetherchemical treatments to wool fibre can increase the carbon fibre yield and properties of the producedcarbon fibres. Wool fibres were treated with a range of chemicals including lignin, tannic acid, polystyrenesulphonate, and chlorine in conjunction with a polyamide resin. The treated fibres were stabilised in air at160 C followed by pyrolysis at 800 C under a nitrogen atmosphere. The resulting carbon fibres werecharacterised in terms of carbon yield, tensile strength, surface roughness, porosity, crystal structure andsurface hydrophobicity. The carbon fibre yield was 16.7% for the untreated while the lignin pre-treatmentincreased the carbon yield up to 25.8%. Generally the surface of the carbon fibre made from bothuntreated and treated fibre exhibited high hydrophilicity except the lignin and chlorine/polyamide resintreatedfibre which showed hydrophobicity. Although the tensile strength achieved for the variousproduced carbon fibre was poor compared to a commercially available pitch-based carbon fibre, thedeveloped carbon fibre still can be utilised in thermoplastic composite manufacturing.