Montefibre Carbon Unveils its First Carbon Fiber PAN Precursor

Montefibre Carbon's 80k aims to be the new standard for large-tow carbon fiber for industrial purposes, and the company expects its impact on the industry to be similar to the 50k tow first launched more than 20 years ago.

Montefibre's carbon fiber precursor is produced from a polyacrylonitrile formulation (PAN), which enables a carbon fiber of high resistance, high elastic modulus and low density, and which translates to rigid and lightweight high performance composites.

The initial Montefibre 80k product range will consist of the M500 and M600, both qualities for non-aerospace use, with standard modulus (SM). Montefibre’s M500 and M600 series with 80,000 filaments pursue cost-performance for large volume applications.

Montefibre 80-M500-SM series has been designed to produce standard industrial quality carbon fiber, type T300, with a tensile strength of 500 ksi (3.5 Gpa) and a modulus of 33 msi (230 Gpa), mainly designed for use in SMC for press molding, in pellets for injection molding, and milled for 3D printing and construction.

Montefibre 80-M600-SM has been engineered to produce carbon fiber, with a tensile strength of 600 ksi (4.1 Gpa) and a modulus of 34 msi (235 Gpa), mainly designed for pultrusion, UD tapes, NCF prepreg and filament winding.

"The tests we have carried out over the last year have confirmed that the M500 and M600 series have an exceptional thermal conversion efficiency that allows for high performance and low energy consumption in conventional oxidation and carbonization lines," says Montefibre Carbon's research director, María Simon.

The first production line of Montefibre 80k fiber will come into operation in mid-2020 with an annual capacity of 3,000 tonnes of PAN precursor. Two other production lines will start operating in 2021, reaching an initial capacity of 11,000 tonnes per year, which can be transformed into around 5,000 tonnes of carbon fiber.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.