Effects of Bromination-Dehydrobromination on the Microstructure of Isotropic Pitch Precursors for Carbon Fibers

In this work, isotropic pitch precursors are synthesized by the bromination-debromination method with ethylene bottom oil (EO) as the raw material and bromine as the initiator for pitch formation and condensation reactions. The aggregation structure, molecular weight distribution, and molecular structure of isotropic pitch precursors are characterized by thermal mechanical analyzer (TMA), MALDI TOF-MS, and ¹³C NMR, respectively, for revealing the mechanism of synthesis of isotropic pitch precursors. The results show that at low bromine concentrations, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were mainly ordered in cross-linked structures by bromination-debromination through substitution reactions of side chains. The condensed reactivity can be improved by the effect of bromine, meaning that condensation reaction was aggravated by the method of bromination-dehydrobromination. In the presence of excess bromine, the cross-linked stereo structure of PAHs changed to the planar structure of condensed PAHs, which was not conducive to the subsequent spinning and preparation of carbon fibers.