Iowa State University research team works to scale bio-based carbon fiber production
In Iowa, Iowa Capital Dispatch reported that Iowa State University (ISU) researchers and their partners are working to scale a method of carbon fiber development using cheap, readily available materials.
ISU mechanical engineering professor and Bioeconomy Institute associate director Xianglan Bai, joined by other bioeconomy institute leaders and researchers, has received a four-year, $2 million grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation to bring carbon fiber made from waste products from the lab to commercial markets.
Softwood kraft lignin — a component of plants that waterproofs cell walls and keeps them strong — is good for protecting the plants against environmental damage, Bai said. It’s not as useful for product applications despite its high carbon content, she said, because it’s difficult to break down. It’s also a byproduct of the paper and pulp industry, used as boiler fluid to recover chemicals from pulp.
This is the polymer that Bai, and others, have focused on in their research when it comes to carbon fiber production. She said her team needed to “bridge the chemistry and the material science,” and did so in one way through “thermo-mechanochemistry,” where they heat lignin and put it under tension to cause changes in its material structure, according to the report.
Bai said there are several patents or patent-pending projects that have come from her team’s study of lignin carbon fiber development. Another component unique to ISU’s work is a type of bio-oil also patented by ISU and developed by Rise Energy, an Ames-based startup company run by leaders in the university’s bioeconomy institute.
Category: Research
