Manufacturing carbon fibres from pitch and polyethylene blend precursors: a review

Carbon fibres are one of the newer, emerging materials with multiple engineering applications, from automobiles to space vehicles. Carbon fibres have high mechanical strength, are lighter than metals with better chemical resistance. There have been reports on the use of polyethylene and pitch precursors for the production of carbon fibres, but there are few reports of how these blends could be used for carbon fibre preparation. Bearing in mind the myriad of benefits that using carbon fibres could bring, this paper reviews recent advances published in the literature on how mesophase pitch and polyethylene could be suitable precursors for carbon fibres. It also provides an introduction to the development of precursor blends that allow the properties of carbon fibres to be tailored to specific applications, including processing techniques, fibre parameters, fibre properties and fibre structure.