Environmental, property and cost impact analysis of carbon fibre at increasing rates of production

The manufacture of carbon fibre is an energy intensive proprietary process which has resulted in limited detailed information on the relationship between process parameters, properties, emissions and energy consumption. This experimental study investigates the relationship between these parameters by performing an in-depth analysis of the fibre properties, composition of emitted gases and energy demand for carbon fibre produced using varying processing line speeds and increasing temperatures on a continues manufacturing line, representative of commercial production processes. The time to produce carbon fibre from a polyacrylonitrile (PAN) based precursor can be reduced by up to 33% while mechanical properties are maintained, thus describing a pathway to improved process efficiency with up to 30% less energy demand, leading to a cleaner production. Results however also show that this applies within a limited time and temperature range, while further increase in manufacturing rates leads to yield reduction and decreasing material properties. The findings from this study are scaled virtually to commercial production quantities and converted to energy and financial improvement potentials for the different process setups. This study shows pathways to significantly improve the energy demand, environmental impact and cost, achievable by optimizing the process.