Carbon fiber technology

Much of the technology used for manufacturing carbon fibers in the United States is licensed from Japanese companies. The high level of Japanese carbon-fiber technology suggests that Japanese companies may produce mat r of the expected future advances in these materials. 

W. Pittman, W. C. Maurer, W. G. Deskins, F. Sabins, and D. Muller. Carbon-fiber technology for improved downhole cement performance final report. Gas Res Inst Rep GRI-96/0276, Gas Res Inst, August 1996. 

Walker, In Carbon Fibers Technology, Uses, and Prospects, Plastics and Rubber Institute, London, 1986. 

Ashok Dhingra, Dupont In regard to the Monsanto-Washington University collaboration, how would you rate that partnership as to its relevance to the commercial success of the projects that they had at that time The Japanese took over the carbon fiber technology, which was being developed under this program. And then Dupont took the leadership for the organic fiber. 

Conoco Carbon Fibers, Houston, Texas, USA acquired pitch carbon fiber technology from DuPont and are building a plant in Ponca City, Oklahoma to produce a random oriented carbon fiber mat. The company has been renamed Conoco Cevolution. Project was expanded in 2001, completed in 2002, but abandoned in 2003. 

Toray Industries Inc., Tokyo, Japan—the world s largest producer of PAN based carbon fibers and the undisputed leader in modem carbon fiber technology. Production of Torayca T300 carbon fiber started in 1978. Cross licensed technology to Union Carbide in the USA in 1978, and carbon fiber production in 1984. Formed a joint company (Soficar) with Elf Acquitaine Pechiney in France and assumed marginal control (70%) in 1989, producing fiber at Abidos. 

Other companies which have developed carbon fibers from mesophase pitch include Exxon Enterprises (who sold their carbon fiber technology to DuPont) and many Japanese companies. The Exxon work was based on extensive research at Rennselaer Polytechnic institute by Riggs and Diefendorf [32]. No commercial product, other than Union Carbide s, has appeared on the market except in sample quantities. However, based on technology developed by the Government industrial Research Institute, Kyushu, Japan, fourteen Japanese companies are trying to develop products of similar nature [331. 

Edison s light bulb filament is the first knovm example of filamentary carbon, made in 1879. Except for early observations of filamentary carbon growth by CVO, it took another 65 years before significant further developments in carbon fiber technology occurred. 

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