Increasing demand for lightweight, high-performance composite materials is driving development in the carbon fibre (CF) industry. European researchers have obtained innovative low-cost precursors for CFs from renewable biomass to meet this growing need.
Around 80 % of CFs currently on the market use polyacrylonitrile (PAN) as the starting raw material, due to its superior properties compared to pitch-based CFs. However, CFs produced from PAN are expensive, limiting their application to aeronautics, the military and other sectors that require high performance materials and will therefore accept high material costs.
Further details: Carbon fibres from biomass