Activation and Micropore Structure Determination of Activated Carbon-Fiber Composites

Previous work focused on the production of carbon fiber composites and subsequently activating them to induce adsorbent properties. One problem related to this approach is the difficulty of uniformly activating large composites. In order to overcome this problem, composites have been made from pre-activated fibers. The loss of surface area upon forming the composites after activation of the fibers was investigated. The electrical resistivity and strength of these composites were compared to those made by activation after forming. It was found that the surface area is reduced by about 35% by forming the composite from pre-activated fibers. However, the properties of the activated sample are very uniform: the variation in surface area is less than {+-}0.5%. So, although the surface area is somewhat reduced, it is believed that making composites from pre-activated fibers could be useful in applications where the BET surface area is not required to be very high. The strength of the composites produced from pre-activated fibers is lower than for composites activated after forming when the carbon burnoff is below 45%. For higher burnoffs, the strength of composites made with pre-activated fibers is as good or better. In both cases, there is a dramatic decrease in strength when the fiber:binder ratio is reduced below 4:1. The electrical resistivity is slightly higher for composites made from pre-activated fibers than for composites that are activated after forming, other parameters being constant (P-200 fibers, similar carbon burnoffs). For both types of composite the resistivity was also found to increase with carbon burnoff. This is attributed to breakage of the fiber causing shorter conductive paths. The electrical resistivity also increases when the binder content is lowered, which suggests that there are fewer solid contact points between the fibers.