XPS Analysis of Carbon Fiber Surfaces—Anodized and Interfacial Effects in Fiber–Epoxy Composites

✍ Scribed by Seung-Kon Ryu; Byung-Jae Park; Soo-Jin Park

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 52 KB
• Volume: 215
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-9797
• DOI: 10.1006/jcis.1999.6240

✦ Synopsis

High strength carbon fibers were electrochemically treated in an aqueous ammonium carbonate solution, with increasing electric current density, using an original continuous treatment process. The electrochemical treatment induced a modification of the surface properties, i.e., surface functional groups as observed by XPS. As a result, the O1s/C1s and the N1s/C1s ratios of the fiber surfaces increased with the increase of current intensity of the electrochemical treatment in the interval of about 30-50 A m-2. However, no significant change in the surface functional activity characters was observed for strong treatments. Hence, a moderate treatment (30 A m-2) was sufficient to obtain optimum (O1s + N1s)/C1s ratios in this system. This treatment is possibly suitable for carbon fibers to be incorporated in a polar organic matrix, resulting in increasing the interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) of the resulting composites. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.