Hydrazine Hydrate-Initiated GO/PAN Composite Fiber Cyclization Reaction to Achieve Chemical Stabilization of PAN

The traditional carbon fiber (CF) stabilization process includes a long heating process that consumes an enormous amount of energy. Designing a room-temperature chemical stabilization method would make the production of CFs more cost-effective and energy-saving. Herein, density functional theory (DFT) at the level of Becke3LYP (B3LYP) coupled with ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations was applied to determine the possibility of chemical stabilization. The simulation result showed that graphene oxide/polyacrylonitrile (GO/PAN) composite fibers could achieve a stabilization reaction barrier as low as 3.76 kcal/mol when treated with hydrazine hydrate. Subsequently, the GO/PAN composite fibers were prepared by using a wet spinning method and treated with hydrazine hydrate. The powder X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, and differential scanning calorimetry results confirmed that the fibers were chemically stabilized. This room-temperature chemical stabilization method can considerably improve the CF preparation efficiency and effectively reduce the energy consumption.