Carbon fibers

Although the first carbon fibers appeared in 1880, thanks to T. Edison, as filaments in incandescent lamps, they were reinvented around 1955 by the National Carbon Company in the USA and the Carbone Lorraine industrial group in France, using heat treatment of rayon fibers or fabrics to obtain carbon textures for thermal applications.

Between 1960 and 1970, research focused on obtaining high-modulus, high-tenacity carbon fibers. Union Carbide developed work on rayon fibers by improving orientation and tensions during carbonization. At the same time, Shindo, from the Industrial Research Institute in Osaka (Japan), and Watt and Philipps, from the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell (Great Britain), discovered the possibility of obtaining high-strength, high-modulus carbon fibers from polyacrylonitrile.

Toray (in Japan), three English companies (Morgan Crucible, Rolls Royce and Courtaulds) and Carbone Lorraine in France (in collaboration with Rhône-Poulenc Textile) began industrializing carbon fibers from polyacrylonitrile in the 1970s.

At the same time, Union Carbide was working on obtaining high-strength, high-modulus carbon fibers from mesophase pitches, while Kureha in Japan and Cerchar (Centre d'études et de recherche des charbonnages) in France were developing carbon fibers for thermal applications from isotropic pitches.

Today, carbon fiber reinforcement is mainly based on polyacrylonitrile (PAN). Mesophase pitch is still used as a precursor for very high modulus applications.

As for isotropic pitch, its use has become very important in the production of carbon textiles for high-temperature insulation, competing with rayon-based materials.