Synthesis and evaluation of new biobased carbon fibre precursors

Carbon fibres play a very important role in the fabrication of light-weight high-performance composite materials. Although the application of such materials can contribute to sustainability in terms of e.g. a strong reduction of fuel consumption, the production of the carbon fibres itself is less ecologically friendly. The main common precursor nowadays being poly(acrylonitrile) is entirely oilbased, necessitates solvent spinning and requires a high energy input in order to be converted in the desired carbon fibre. A possible strategy to mitigate these problems is to develop a biobased precursor which can be converted into the required polymer fibre by melt-spinning. In this project, two types of biobased materials will be synthesized and evaluated as carbon fibre precursors, namely furan based condensation polymers and fatty acid based polyolefin analogues. The polymers will be synthesized, molecularly and morphologically characterized and the meltspinning thereof will be evaluated. Preliminary carbonisation tests will be carried out in order to explore the structure - processing - properties relationship, providing feedback towards synthesis and processing