Comprehensive stabilization mechanism of electron-beam irradiated polyacrylonitrile fibers to shorten the conventional thermal treatment

An electron beam was irradiated on polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibers prior to thermal stabilization. The electron-beam irradiation effectively shortened the thermal stabilization process by one fourth compared with the conventional thermal stabilization process. A comprehensive mechanistic study was conducted regarding this shortening of the thermal stabilization by electron-beam irradiation. Various species of chain radicals were produced in PAN fibers by electron-beam irradiation and existed for a relatively long duration, as observed by electron spin resonance spectroscopy. Subsequently, these radicals were gradually oxidized to peroxy radicals in the presence of oxygen under storage or heating. We found that these peroxy radicals (COO.) enabled such an effective shortcut of thermal stabilization by acting as intermolecular cross-linking and partial aromatization points in the low temperature range (100-130 degrees C) and as earlier initiation seeds of successive cyclization reactions in the next temperature range (> 130-140 degrees C) of thermal stabilization. Finally, even at a low irradiation dose (200 kGy), followed by a short heat treatment (230 degrees C for 30 min), the PAN fibers were sufficiently stabilized to produce carbon fibers with tensile strength and modulus of 2.3 and 216 GPa, respectively, after carbonization.