Multifunctional Carbon Based Felt
Date
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Pyrolysis has emerged as a strategy for processing waste textiles, with the conversion of high-carbon-content textile waste into carbonaceous materials being beneficial for recovering its economic value while mitigating the environmental impact of textile waste. Carbon felt is widely used due to its lightweight nature and internal 3D conductive network. However, limited research exists on directly using waste textile felts as a precursor to produce carbon felt. The aim of this thesis is to carbonize acrylic-based waste felts under controlled conditions to produce carbon felt and enable its multifunctional applications. To achieve the conversion of acrylic-based felts into flexible carbon felts with excellent performance, this study aims to investigate the impact of different loading tension methods and PTFE coatings during the pyrolysis process on the shrinkage rate, mechanical properties, electrical properties, and thermal properties of the resulting carbon felt. The results indicate that applying edge load to the samples during the carbonization stage helps to reduce the shrinkage rate of the final product, allowing the carbon felt to gain flexibility and form a well-structured conductive network. To study the impact of PTFE coating on the pyrolysis of acrylic -based felts, acrylic -based felts were coated with different concentrations of PTFE and subsequently subjected to pyrolysis. By examining the morphology, mechanical properties, and electrical properties of PTFE-coated samples, we found that higher coating concentrations had a greater impact on the performance of the resulting carbon felt. Although high coating concentrations increased the material's modulus and electrical conductivity, they also led to a loss of flexibility in the carbon felt, which could severely limit its application scope. By characterizing the morphology and structure of carbon felts prepared at different carbonization temperatures under an edge loading mode, it was found that increasing the carbonization temperature promoted higher crystallinity within the fibers and the formation of an ordered graphite structure. The formation of a dense, highly conductive network and high porosity was achieved. EMI shielding results demonstrated that the resulting carbon felt achieved a high EMI shielding effectiveness of 55 dB and a specific shielding effectiveness of 2676.9 dBcm?g1, surpassing many carbon composites. Additionally, the carbon felt exhibited excellent heating efficiency and high heating rates in resistive heating tests. Structural stability was investigated through a custom-designed experiment. The results showed that even under heating conditions, the carbon felt could maintain internal conductive pathway stability through multiple bending cycles. This work also investigated the feasibility of converting acrylic -based filter felts into carbon felts for use in respiratory filtration layers. The excellent electrical conductivity of carbon felt allows it to be used not only as a respiratory filtration layer but also for high-temperature electrical disinfection. The design of the mask body and the corresponding electrode configuration enabled controlled resistive heating performance, ensuring the reliability of high-temperature disinfection of the carbon felt. Filtration efficiency and antibacterial testing results showed that the carbon felt achieved over 90% filtration efficiency for inhalable particles and effectively inhibited microbial growth due to its antibacterial properties. Flexible carbon felt offers lower manufacturing costs and exhibits good chemical and structural stability. Functional testing results indicate that it demonstrates significant potential for applications in wearable heaters, flexible EMI shielding, respiratory filters, and other related fields.