The preparation and characterization of liquefied wood based primary fibers

The preparation of primary fibers were performed from liquefied wood in phenol by melt-spinning with different spinnerettes of length/diameter ratio (L/D) (0, 2, and 4), to investigate the effect of the size of spinnerette on the thermal stability and structural properties of primary fibers. High thermal transition temperatures and small weight loss percentages of resultant primary fibers representing good thermal stability were obtained with L/D of spinnerette increasing. Besides, few defective structure occurred on cross section and surface of primary fibers in comparison with those prepared with spinnerette of L/D=0. We found that these improvements were caused by the formation of hydrogen bond among phenolic hydroxyl groups in the period of flow entering the cylindrical die of spinnerette. Thus, the precursor, with either porous structure for preparing activated carbon fibers or defect-free structure for preparing carbon fibers with high performance, can be probably prepared by controlling the spinnerette system.