Hilda Zahra: Strategies to enhance the carbon yield from cellulose-based precursor fiber through blending

Content of the thesis: 

Carbon fibers from cellulose and biopolymer blends

Carbon fiber (CF) is a strong and lightweight material that is often used in a high-priced market, such as aircraft and automotive industries. The expensive price of CF is due to the cost of its precursor material, polyacrylonitrile (PAN), which is also derived from petroleum oil. Cellulose fiber has the potential to replace PAN polymer as a CF precursor due to its low cost, abundance, and sufficient structure. However, the yield of CF from cellulose fiber is low (around 10%), which decreases the economic feasibility of industrial production. To tackle this problem, bio-based polymers, such as chitosan and keratin, were added to the cellulose fibers to improve the CF yield. The addition of chitosan or keratin was also shown to alter the characteristics of the precursor fibers and the resulting CF. The results from this study offer insights into how to tune the properties of cellulose fibers or CF fibers sustainably, besides improving the economic feasibility of bio-based CF in the mass market.

Opponent: Professor Monica Ek, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

Supervisor: Professor Michael Hummel, Aalto University, School of Chemical Engineering

Link to electronic thesis: LINK

Link to the remote defence: Will be updated here