Development of Activated Carbon Fibers

High surface area, super adsorbent activated carbon fibers are potentially an excellent adsorptive material for chemical protective uniforms. However, these fibers are not currently available from a domestic source. A Phase I program is proposed to demonstrate the feasibility of producing laboratory scale quantities of short highly activated carbon fibers based on a U.S. developed process (U.S. Patent No. 4,082,694). Carbon fibers from four percursor fibers will be obtained; pitch, PAN, phenolic resin and rayon. These fibers will be carbonized with excess potassium hydroxide at temperatures to 800-900 C, washed and dried. The resulting fibers will possess effective BET surfact areas of well over 1500M2/gram and provide excellent toxic vapor adsorption when fabricated into a flocked fabric.