Andreas De Palmenaer

Exergetic Analysis of the Thermal Conversion Process in PAN-Based Carbon Fibre Production

The processes of stabilisation and carbonisation in carbon fibre manufacture provides a large energy saving potential if an adequate furnace technology and process control is used. In this paper a general exergetic balance equation for the processes of stabilisation and carbonisation with the objective to determine the exergetic costs of producing carbon fibres is placed. After a short theoretical explanation of the carbon fibre manufacturing processes, this paper will resort to the general laws of thermodynamics and later determine the exergy of heat and mass flows in the processes. Experiments are carried out in a DSC and TGA combined with a mass spectrometry to determine the composition of the evolved gases during the stabilisation process. Furthermore DSC and TGA measurements are used to determine specific heat capacity and mass loss of the polyacrylonitrile precursor material. Included in the exergetic balance equation the measured material values leads to an exergy efficiency result of the carbon fibre conversion reaction.