Textile grade polyacrylonitrile (PAN) was used as a precursor material for carbon fiber preparation. E-beam irradiated polyacrylonitrile grafted carbon nanofibers were dispersed in polyacrylonitrile solution (dissolved in dimethyl formamide). Carbon nanofibers (CNF) infused polyacrylonitrile solution was wet spun on a lab-scale wet-spinning setup to form 50 to 70 µm diameter fibers with 3.2 wt.% CNF-PAN, 6.4 wt.% CNF-PAN, and neat PAN. Precursor fibers were characterized for thermal, mechanical and morphological properties using various techniques. Drawing the precursor fibers further enhanced polymer chain orientation and coalesced the voids, enhancing tensile strength and modulus by more than 150% compared to those of the undrawn fibers. Precursor composite fibers on carbonization showed enhanced strength, compared to that of pristine PAN fibers, by four times and stiffness by 14 times. The carbon-carbon composite fibers were further characterized with SEM/FIB, XRD and tensile strength. The property improvements were dependent on the uniform distribution of carbon nanofibers, and surface modification of carbon nanofibers further enabled their dispersion in the composite fibers. Furthermore, 3.2 wt.% CNFs in PAN fibers showed maximum improvement in properties compared to 6.4 wt.% CNF in PAN fibers, indicating that the property enhancements go through a maximum and then drop off due to challenge in getting uniform distribution of nanofibers.
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