Sheath-Core Carbon Fibre Precursor (Carbon Fibre Grand Challenge)

The project covers a new method to make carbon fiber that, through a sheath core technology, will both stabilise the spinning process and prevent filament sticking downstream. The method obviates the need for a separate mesophase formation as is needed for pitch based carbon fibres. The entire process is amenable to computer modelling which, in conjunction with the measurement of certain Aberta Oil sands asphaltenes (AOA) material properties will be used to design the required equipment and specify optimum operating conditions thus reducing development time. Overall this will provide a lower cost and more robust carbon fibre precursor spinning process.