POLYACRYLONITRILE PRECURSOR FOR CARBON FIBERS

Design of Microstructure-Engineered Polymers for Energy and Environmental Conservation

With the ever-growing demand for sustainability, designing polymeric materials using readily accessible feedstocks provides potential solutions to address the challenges in energy and environmental conservation. Complementing the prevailing strategy of varying chemical composition, engineering microstructures of polymer chains by precisely controlling their chain length distribution, main chain regio-/stereoregularity, monomer or segment sequence, and architecture creates a powerful toolbox to rapidly access diversified material properties. In this Perspective, we lay out recent advances in utilizing appropriately designed polymers in a wide range of applications such as plastic recycling, water purification, and solar energy storage and conversion. With decoupled structural parameters, these studies have established various microstructure-function relationships. Given the progress outlined here, we envision that the microstructure-engineering strategy will accelerate the design and optimization of polymeric materials to meet sustainability criteria.

Hybrid carbon silica nanofibers through sol-gel electrospinning

A controlled sol-gel synthesis incorporated with electrospinning is employed to produce polyacrylonitrile-silica (PAN-silica) fibers. Hybrid fibers are obtained with varying amounts of silica precursor (TEOS in DMF catalyzed by HCl) and PAN. Solution viscosity, conductivity, and surface tension are found to relate strongly to the electrospinnability of PAN-silica solutions. TGA and DSC analyses of the hybrids indicate strong intermolecular interactions, possibly between the -OH group of silica and -CN of PAN. Thermal stabilization of the hybrids at 280 °C followed by carbonization at 800 °C transforms fibers to carbon-silica hybrid nanofibers with smooth morphology and diameter ranging from 400 to 700 nm. FTIR analysis of the fibers confirms the presence of silica in the as-spun as well as the carbonized material, where the extent of carbonization is also estimated by confirming the presence of -C═C and -C═O peaks in the carbonized hybrids. The graphitic character of the carbon-silica fibers is confirmed through Raman studies, and the role of silica in the disorder of the carbon structure is discussed.

Análise térmica da poliacrilonitrila plastificada com glicerol em extrusora

Neste trabalho são apresentados resultados de análise térmica para poliacrilonitrila (PAN) plastificada com glicerina. Foram observados os efeitos da glicerina de alta pureza (glicerol) e demais aditivos à base de glicóis na fusão e degradação térmica da PAN pela técnica de DSC sob alta taxa de aquecimento (90 °C/min) e atmosfera inerte. Foi constatado que o glicerol reduziu a temperatura de fusão da PAN de 290 °C para 217 °C. Em uma etapa preliminar foi empregado o método de Kissinger para verificar o efeito da composição química da PAN sob sua degradação térmica. A energia de ativação aparente para o copolímero de PAN foi calculada em 149 kJ.mol-1. Sugeriu-se que a presença do comonômero acetato de vinila (AV) na composição química da PAN proporcionou menor entalpia de degradação (353 J.g-1) em comparação com outros comonômeros constituintes de uma PAN precursora de fibras de carbono (988 J.g-1).