Preparation of carbon nanofibers from plastic pyrolytic oil and their reinforcement efficiency on epoxy carbon fiber composite

Abstract

Pyrolysis proved to be an environmentally attractive method to decompose a wide variety of plastic waste material. It refers to the thermal degradation (absence of oxygen) of the plastic waste at typical pyrolysis temperature of 400 and#730;C to produce oil, gas and char. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have outstanding electrical, thermal and mechanical properties, which make them interesting material for application in nanoelectronics, sensors and field emission. In this present work the investigators synthesised carbon multiwalled nanotubes using plastic pyrolytic oil especially derived from waste polystyrene plastic by spray pyrolysis with ferrocene as a catalyst at various temperatures under argon atmosphere. The main advantages of this process are facile and robust technique with low cost and easily available precursor. It is suitable for mass and large scale production of one dimensional carbon nanomaterial. A newly developed strategy offering promising results involves reinforcing epoxy matrics with nano sized particles such as Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) and making new materials with enhanced properties. The unique properties of these low dimensional carbon nano materials such as nanometric size, high specific surface area and the possibility of combining them with conventional reinforcements have elicited intense research in the field of nano composites. newline