Abstract—The high cost of the present carbon fiber
precursors led researchers to investigate new and cheaper
sources. Hence, the scientists all over the world have been
making their efforts to develop materials suitable to their native
country and attempting to find new ways to make carbon fiber.
This study aims to investigate the processing of Libyan oil
residues into high quality carbon materials. Samples from
Bouri, Es Sider and Amna crude oils were processed by vacuum
distillation and air blowing methods to produce pitch
precursors. Softening point (SP), FT-IR, TGA, and SEM were
performed to characterize the petroleum pitch, the as spun
fibres, the stabilized fibres and the carbon fibres. Vacuum
distillation markedly decreased atomic H/C ratio and increased
aromaticity as well as the softening point. FT-IR analysis of the
produced pitches showed that the relative intensities of the
bands associated with aliphatic structure decreased with
increased softening point, while the bands of aromatic structure
were found to be slightly increased. The formation of the
oxygenated compounds was the major feature of the air blowing
technique. The softening point of the blown pitches could be
raised to about 1750C, giving a relatively less weight loss (64%).
Carbon fibres have been produced successfully from the Bouri
oil residues. The Bouri Vacuum distilled pitch was successfully
melt-spun into fibres. The resulting fibres were stabilized by
oxidation with air. The morphology of the Bouri carbon fibers
was studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM).
Index Terms—Carbon fibres, chemical structure, petroleum
pitch.
Alhadi A. Elakrimi was with Department of Chemical Engineering,
University of Tripoli, Tripoli, Libya (e-mail: elakramih@ gmail.com).
Abdurazag A. Shebli was with Libyan Petroleum Institute, P.O. Box 6377,
Tripoli, Libya (e-mail: a.shebli@lpilibya.com).
[PDF]
Cite: Alhadi A. Elakrimi and Abdurazag A. Shebli, "Investigation of the Processing of Libyan Crude Oil Residues into Carbon Fibres," International Journal of Chemical Engineering
and Applications vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 147-158, 2018.
