Abstract:

This paper presents the changes to some properties and structural features of four types of polymer fibres and the nonwovens obtained from them during fibre pyrolysis and the following steam activation at a temperature of 850 °C of the carbon nonwovens obtained. The changes in tenacity of the precursor, the carbon, and the active carbon nonwovens as the result of thermal and oxidation processing were tested, among others. We stated that the loss of tenacity mainly takes place during the pyrolysis and the accompanied radical reconstruction of the fibre structure. The activation process, although connected with a further great loss of mass, causes relative significantly small changes in the tenacity of the active carbon nonwovens obtained from viscose and phenolic resin-based fibres, whereas the mechanical properties of active carbon nonwovens obtained from polyacrylonitrile fibres as a precursor decrease even further considerably.