DSC Study on the Polyacrylonitrile Precursors for Carbon Fibers

Different polyacrylonitrile (PAN) precursor fibers that displayed various thermal properties were studied by using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Results showed that some commercial PAN precursor fibers displayed double separated peaks and these fibers were of high quality because of their process stability during their conversion to carbon fibers of high performance. Some fabrication processes, such as spinning, drawing, could not apparently change the DSC features of a PAN precursor fiber. It was concluded that the thermal properties of a PAN precursor fiber was mainly determined from its comonomer content type and compositions.