July 16, 2021 • 22 mins
What's the manufacturing process for carbon fiber? What properties does carbon fiber possess?
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
and I love all things tech and it is time
for a classic episode of tech Stuff. This one published
way back on June eleven, two thousand four. It's a
(00:27):
follow up to our last classic episode. This one is
how carbon fiber works. If you listen to the previous one,
it was the history of carbon fiber. Now we're going
to get into more about what makes carbon fiber special.
Hope you enjoy. Let's start really quick with a with
a brief overview of what carbon fiber is um. It's
it's made up of thin strands of crystalline carbon um,
(00:48):
like like a really thin like human hair or thinner,
that have been twisted into yarn type stuff and then
woven into cloth type stuff and then usually treated with
some kind of resin and molded into a final shape,
right which it will then hold. So it's not you know,
it's not like you put it in a shape and
then like regular cloth that then loses that shape. You
(01:12):
Actually that resin helps it hold that that particular shape.
So that you end up with a really strong, really
light material, right, And I forgot one step at the
beginning there, which is you have to create a this.
You have to create this carbonized material, right, This crystalline
carbon strand um, which you do with stuff called a precursor,
(01:33):
which can be made with it is most commonly made
with ryan polyocryllum nitrial a K A PAN, which we're
probably going to use more often than polyocrylla nitrial certainly
I will um or petroleum pitch yep. So these precursor fibers,
with the exception of petroleum pitch, this is all stuff
that we are making synthetically. Uh, you know, we're creating polymers.
(01:56):
Polymers are our long chain molecules. They're made up of monomers.
A monomer think of that as like a basic unit
of a polymer. So you get these really long chains
and then we carbonize them. So how do we carbonize Well,
for one thing, we use chemicals to alter the molecules
in the fiber to create a perfect chain of carbon atoms.
(02:16):
And these precursor fibers are pulled through an oxidation oven
for a couple of minutes, and that oven's temperature is
about two hundred fifty degrees celsius. So the fibers then
take on oxygen atoms from the air while in the
this oven. Now this is not the actual carbonization process here.
This is just pre treatment, kind of like when you
(02:38):
take your car in to get car washed, and this
is the pre wash part of the wash. We should
probably do an episode about car washes at some point
and find out which one which of those stages are
actually necessary. But getting back to the carbon fiber, the
incorporation of oxygen atoms into the molecular structure of the
fibers make the fibers actually resistant to high heat. It's
(02:59):
very import because of an upcoming step. Now. At that time,
the color of these precursor fibers changes as it oxidizes
and eventually turns black. So whenever you hear something like
carbon black, and yeah, it's that particular color. Like I
remember this all the time in video games where you're
choosing your like halo, particularly where you're choosing your armor colors,
(03:23):
it's because it's taking it from the carbon fiber color
and the color tends to be black because that's what
happens through the oxidation phase. So next you put these
oxidized fibers, the ones that have been tempered for high
heat to go into another furnace, and this one has
controlled amounts of other gases, but not oxygen, because you
don't want the fibers to burn, right, because in the
(03:45):
presence of oxygen, those fibers become fuel and then you
just get fire, right, and then an ash is less strong. Yeah. Yeah,
if you just burn up your material, you are not
doing it right. So what you have to do is
you have to have these other gases that can enter
deuce other types of atoms into the molecular structure, for
instance hydrogen perhaps, but non oxygen, so that way you
(04:07):
don't actually have a fire, you don't end up burning
the stuff, right. So, so with this tremendous heat, the
the fibers vibrate and the atoms that are not carbon
vibrate right out of this stuff, resulting in this carbonized
material exactly. So we get these carbon atoms and they
are becoming these tightly packed crystals that run parallel to
(04:30):
the length of the fiber. The fibers then go through
a bath of electrically charged water which etches the surface
of the fibers. It actually carves into the surface of
the fiber a little bit, and those etched surfaces create
anchor points for resin. Yeah, because otherwise, you know, the
resin wouldn't necessarily adhere evenly to the carbon fiber, making
(04:51):
it less useful. This is a way of sort of
giving those little hand holds. I think of it like
a rock wall with the little handholds in them, similar
to that. So net you have to spray the fibers
with a light resin. Now that that is important for
two reasons. It helps improve the fiber's material strength, and
it creates a bonding agent for any future resin that
would be applied to that carbon fiber. So this is
(05:14):
not the stuff that makes carbon fiber uh adhere to
a specific shape. It's not multiple right. This is just
so that if you exactly if you want to apply
multiple resin to it, that resin will adhere better. So
everything here is all about pre treating this stuff so
that it can eventually be put through whatever manufacturing process
(05:35):
you want to continue down the road in order to
get at whatever you're making, for example, a golf club,
um or an airplane. Who knows you could do either
with these sort of stuff. So then you have the
finished carbon fiber, which is called a carbon fiber toe,
and you wind that on a spool. So this is
the stuff that other companies buy as raw material, which
(05:58):
then they can braid, eve mold, or otherwise altered to
make into their final product. Now, carbon fiber toes can
also be grouped together in larger amounts called a web. Now,
these webs can be put through a process that ends
with a sheet of carbon fiber material. It's kind of cool.
It looks like just an enormous black sheet of fabric,
(06:19):
but that fabric is actually carbon fiber. So that fabric
is five times stronger than steel and lighter than steel,
and more more, it can be stiffer than steel if
you apply the resin to it. I mean, it's it's
interesting to think that something that looks like cloth could
have these properties. Now, see the web is sandwich between
sheets of paper to have a resin coating on them.
(06:41):
Sounds familiar, right, got a lot of resin in this process.
But these sheets are pulled through a high temperature pair
of rollers. So think of the ringers we talked about
with the washing machines, same sort of thing. You're putting
this whole thing. Those those rollers are are at a
high temperature. They're pressed together really tightly. And what this
does is you get this protective layer over that that
(07:03):
carbon fiber sheet, and then you remove the two pieces
of paper. They just peel away because part of the
material in there is kind of like a nose stick coating,
sort of like teflon. And so you pull the paper
away and you roll the the carbon fiber material, like
the big sheet of material onto giant, giant spools. You
(07:26):
do have to put a little polyvinyl coating on them
so that way it's actually like to itself exactly. But
they look like, and I am not the only one
to have used this comparison enormous fruit roll ups, and
like enormous fruit roll ups, they have that little plastic
coating to keep it from sticking to it or fruit
leather if you prefer, let's proprietarily yeah, um, but but yeah,
(07:50):
that that that resin job there reminds me a lot
of if you, as a child ever made ever preserved
leaves or flowers and wax paper by by ironing it
down so that so that you've got that thin layer
of wax similar to similar, very similar. So now this
entire process, Uh, does have some downsides to it. Not
(08:12):
the flower pressing thing. No, no, no, no, carbon fiber
if you're not careful, the flower pressing thing too. But no,
I'm specifically talking about creating carbon fiber and not just
the carbon fiber sheets. I'm just talking about the whole
process of carbon fiber in general. One of those is
that it tends to give off a lot of dangerous gases,
including carbon monoxide. So the smokes and tars that are
(08:34):
given off in this process are not necessarily poisonous, but
can contribute to serious health issues with prolonged exposure. So
one of the things that's really important in the facilities
that make carbon fibers is that they have really good
ventilation so that the people who work inside them don't
get sick over time, sure, and really good collections so
that you're not polluting the environment. Yeah, So this is
(08:54):
a process that could potentially be harmful to the environment
just through the production process. Now, we talked in the
last podcast about how the fact that it's lighter and
stronger than steel means that using it for vehicles means
you use less fuel for that vehicle, which efficient. Yeah,
and it makes it environmentally friendly from a fuel consumption process.
(09:15):
But like all things, you have to look at the
enormous picture, which you know. It's one of those things
where every time I start getting really excited about technology,
thinking oh, clean energy, and then I start looking beyond
about how do you make the clean energy? And then
I think, yeah, there needs to be a magic button.
That's all I'm saying. But anyway, you you classify this
(09:37):
stuff according to the tent sile modulus of the fiber
tent file modulus. It's a measure of how stiff the
fiber is. Yeah, but that's that's the term within the
industry is tensile modulus. And I bet because because of
the way the world works, there is both an English
system and an international system for dealing with this. Yeah,
you are absolutely correct. So the English them would be
(10:01):
pounds of force per square inch of cross sectional area
also known as p S I PI, and then the
international system of units would be the PASCAL, which is
also known as force per unit area. So one pascal
is one newton of force per square meter, meaning that
it is interesting to try and convert between the two. Fortunately,
(10:24):
the the various sources we looked at spelled it all
out for us, so we didn't have to see, we
didn't have to do Yeah, we didn't have to worry
about being the ones who messed up a conversion. So
if these conversions are just let Google do that for me.
Not the Google usually messes up conversion. If I mess
up a conversion, it's because I accidentally didn't realize I
put the wrong unit in on one side of the conversion.
(10:47):
Uh So fortunately this case, we didn't have to worry
about that. So low modulus carbon fiber have a tensile
modulus below thirty four point eight million p s i
or two hundred forty million k p a that's kilo pascals.
And on the other end of the spectrum is the
ultra high modulus. There's a tensile modulus of seventy two
(11:08):
point five to one forty five million p s i
or five hundred million to one billion kilo pascals. Now,
in between those two extremes are levels like standard modulus,
intermediate modulus, and high modulus. And if you wanted to
compare it to steel, yeah, yeah, so for you know,
for baseline comparison, right, because often that's what we like
(11:30):
to look at right, carbon fiber versus steel. I mean,
otherwise why use carbon fiber at all if steel were better.
So steel has a tensile modulus of around twenty nine
million p s i or two hundred million kilo pascals,
so close, but but not even reaching the low modulus. Yeah. Yeah,
the low modulus was thirty four point eight million p
(11:50):
s i or two d forty million kilo pascals. So
that means that if you go with the strongest carbon fibers,
you get ten times the strength of steel, right, the
tin style modulus if you want to be really picky,
but yes, strength is how we usually call it. So
steel is five times heavier than carbon fiber, and carbon
fibers ten times stronger than steel. Yeah, if you're using
(12:12):
the ultra high version. So that's pretty cool, and that
is I mean again one of the big reasons why
everyone is is really excited by this this particular type
of material. Oh absolutely, but but okay, So aside from
those pollution related drawbacks that we mentioned earlier, there are
unfortunately some others with this material. We touched on them
(12:33):
briefly in the previous episode, but let's go a little
bit further into them. However, before we do so, let
us take a quick break to thank our sponsor. I
like saving the negative stuff for after the sponsor break.
Let's talk about some drawbacks. All right. So we mentioned
(12:56):
earlier in our first episode in fact, that carbon fiber
is expensive, and we mean really expensive. It's like ten
dollars a pound on the low end, whereas steel is
something like a dollar per pound. Now we should say
this is an improvement from twenty years ago. In right,
carbon fiber back then cost a hundred and fifty bucks
a pound, So the prices dropped precipitously, one might say,
(13:19):
since the nineties, still more expensive than steel. Yeah, and
and the price is because of that really intricate manufacturing
process that we've just talked through. Um, the raw materials
are more like four dollars per pound, which, to be fair,
is still four times what steel costs. Yeah, I mean,
you're you. And that's just to make those raw materials
(13:39):
I mean, or by those raw materials before you put
them through the carbon fiber process. So what exactly is
making the process expensive? Okay? First off, those furnaces, uh,
not the original furnaces, but the carbonization, right, they run
around or even an excess of a thousand degrees celsius,
(13:59):
which is over eighteen hundred degrees fahrenheit, meaning you've got
a really big power bill. I always worry if I've
let the oven on. Yeah, the process uses some five
times more energy than steel production. Okay. Also, venting the
waste materials safely is expensive. We talked about how carbon
monoxide is one of the big things that's led out
(14:21):
in this process, right right, Um, and weaving the stuff
for maximum safety is expensive. You have to use a
lot of fibers to compensate for for potential imperfections in
the weave that could cause strain and eventual breakage within
the fabric. Um. Also, it takes longer to create a
piece than it does to just stamp out a piece
of steel. You know. It's it's this huge three part process. Um.
(14:45):
It takes an hour to cure the resin alone. So
we're talking we're talking about bunches of time. Okay, But
all right, I see here you actually looked more into
the reson itself. I'm really interested in this process, right Okay.
So if you make it with the most common resin,
which is thermos set resin, it's in that shape forever. UM.
It's it's really difficult to reef or melt down or
(15:08):
recycle thermo set resin carbon fiber. UM. If you do
try to recycle this stuff, that the resulting carbon fiber
is weaker, it's too weak to be used, for example,
in a car body for for safety standards. So there's
greater potential for waste in both manufacturing and the post
consumer market. I mean, if if you set this thing wrong,
(15:29):
it's I mean you've basically just wasted this huge, expensive process.
So if your molds are off even by a little bit,
then you're you're stuck with the shape that you've got,
and you can't easily break it down and just make
a new one because it's going to be less strong.
It'll be too weak to really possibly depending upon what
the application was. Yeah. Yeah, so that that's a big draw. Yeah. UM.
(15:52):
There are some possible solutions to this that the industry
is looking into other than the manufacturing streamlining that Jonathan
was talking about earlier. UM, and those are using strong
acrylics in place of carbon fibers, or perhaps in combination
with carbon fibers. UM. They're experimenting with heating the stuff
(16:12):
with plasma instead of the thermal furnaces that are currently
in use. You know, I love plasma furnaces. They're pretty
they're pretty cool. Not literally length about plasma furnaces, so
um or or possibly using re multiple thermoplastic resins in
place of the permanent thermoset resins that are currently in use.
(16:32):
Now that's interesting. Now, obviously with that particular approach, you
would have to make sure whatever application you are using,
uh the carbon fiber for wasn't going to bring it
into contact with temperatures too high. So obviously, like exactly
that would be. That would be one where I think
the permanent thermo set would definitely be the way to
go because they undergo such extremes and temperature that anything
(16:57):
that could potentially weaken the the structure would be a
big negative for that particular application. Sure, one more downside
before we get onto happier news though, Um, the a
lot of the precursor materials are petroleum based and so
you know which which obviously, petroleum is an expensive and
(17:20):
non renewable resource unless you've got a few billion years
to play with. Yeah, if you don't mind you know,
stretching out your lifespan too. Beyond what is conceivable, then
you're fine. But otherwise you could reach a point where
in years we're gonna have the singularities. That's true, that's true.
So I guess millions of years. I guess it's really millions,
not billions of years. I apologize, guys, hundreds of millions
(17:43):
of years. So it's fine. I was overstating things exaggeration
in order to make a point. But but so researchers
are looking into renewable precursors like lignant, which is a
would by product that would be really useful. So it's
kind of funny too, because in a way, it's look
back to the earliest days of carbon fibers where we
were using cotton and bamboo to create carbon fiber. Time
(18:06):
for another quick break, and we'll be right back. Now.
Let's talk about some of the other benefits when when
you treat this carbon fiber with the right resin ends
up being resistant to corrosives, which makes it an ideal
material for pipes that tend to carry corrosive liquids, and
(18:29):
their fatigue properties are better than any metal. So by
having these pipes, you don't have to worry about them
wearing out a quickly. They're not going to corrode based
upon whatever materials moving through them, and they are themselves
in nerts, so you don't have to worry about chemical
reactions going on in there. So that would be one
of the big benefits if we were able to make
(18:50):
enough of it to be used in that kind of infrastructure. Sure. Also,
that strength really is impressive. Formula one race cars are
made all of carbon fiber. Well, I guess not all
of carbon fiber. I mean, you know they've got pieces, right,
but the body is uh, and that's more as a
safety regulation than anything else. So so if we could
(19:11):
bring down the cost of the manufacturer, it could potentially
save lives. Sure yeah, yeah, you know, you end up
making even basic car designs much stronger just by switching
the materials they're made out of. And then, uh, something
kind of cool that I read before we started, uh
really getting into this podcast. It was just a neat
little little news item, and uh, I encourage folks are
(19:33):
interested to go and look up the Mark one three
D printer. It's built as the world's first three D
printer designed to print continuous carbon fiber. So it uses
a process called composite filament fabrication or CFF, which embeds
continuous strands of fibers in a thermoplastic matrix, So you
could actually print carbon fiber pieces like you could print
(19:57):
various components in carbon fiber, right with that thermoplastic that
I was talking about being being remultiple and remultiple, And
so you might be thinking, hey, how much would one
of these things run me? So if you want to
pre order one of these, because they don't they haven't
been out on the market yet, you can pre order one.
Uh the cost is a lowly four thousand nine dollars,
(20:19):
which you know, printers really isn't that expensive. I mean,
if you're looking at at three D printers that are
printing in UH an a BS plastic, which is typically
what other three D printers use, those tend to be
less expensive, but ABS plastic is not as strong. In fact,
the print of material materials are supposed to be up
to twenty times stiffer and five times stronger than a
(20:40):
BS plastic parts. So if you are building things that
have a lot of wear to them over time, this
could be a good solution because it means you don't
have to print replacements as frequently. Sure, although I mean
I imagine that the cash to purchase the materials to
put into your printer. Yeah, it might be more expensive
(21:00):
to get the actual like quote unquote the toner than
a BS, So that is something else to take into consideration.
But yeah, so this material has has a huge amount
of current use and future promise. Yeah. In fact, I
remember some people even going so far as to look
into the use of carbon fibers as a potential tether
(21:21):
material for space elevator. But as it turns out when
you do the math, it looks like, uh, carbon fibers
wouldn't be strong enough. It wouldn't have the tin stile
strength to withstand the forces. Yeah, because it's not quite
as strong as carbon nanotubes. I mean, the problem with
carbon nano tubes being there that you know, you can't
get them as long as you can carbon. Yeah, producing
(21:41):
carbon nanotubes is a big problem right now. Like, while
we're getting closer and closer to to really efficient means
of making carbon fiber more plentiful due to the manufacturing
process improvements over time, we're a long way with carbon nanotubes.
I mean, we've seen some promising develop elements, but you
know it's still gonna be a while. I hope you
(22:03):
enjoyed that classic episode of tech Stuff. We're going to
uh take another look at carbon fiber soon. I think
I was considering it earlier. I think I'm pretty firm
on that. If you have suggestions for things I should
tackle in future episodes of tech Stuff, reach out to me.
The best way to do that is over on Twitter.
The handle for the show is text Stuff H s
(22:24):
W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text
Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts
from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
and I love all things tech and it is time
for a classic episode of tech Stuff. This one published
way back on June eleven, two thousand four. It's a
(00:27):
follow up to our last classic episode. This one is
how carbon fiber works. If you listen to the previous one,
it was the history of carbon fiber. Now we're going
to get into more about what makes carbon fiber special.
Hope you enjoy. Let's start really quick with a with
a brief overview of what carbon fiber is um. It's
it's made up of thin strands of crystalline carbon um,
(00:48):
like like a really thin like human hair or thinner,
that have been twisted into yarn type stuff and then
woven into cloth type stuff and then usually treated with
some kind of resin and molded into a final shape,
right which it will then hold. So it's not you know,
it's not like you put it in a shape and
then like regular cloth that then loses that shape. You
(01:12):
Actually that resin helps it hold that that particular shape.
So that you end up with a really strong, really
light material, right, And I forgot one step at the
beginning there, which is you have to create a this.
You have to create this carbonized material, right, This crystalline
carbon strand um, which you do with stuff called a precursor,
(01:33):
which can be made with it is most commonly made
with ryan polyocryllum nitrial a K A PAN, which we're
probably going to use more often than polyocrylla nitrial certainly
I will um or petroleum pitch yep. So these precursor fibers,
with the exception of petroleum pitch, this is all stuff
that we are making synthetically. Uh, you know, we're creating polymers.
(01:56):
Polymers are our long chain molecules. They're made up of monomers.
A monomer think of that as like a basic unit
of a polymer. So you get these really long chains
and then we carbonize them. So how do we carbonize Well,
for one thing, we use chemicals to alter the molecules
in the fiber to create a perfect chain of carbon atoms.
(02:16):
And these precursor fibers are pulled through an oxidation oven
for a couple of minutes, and that oven's temperature is
about two hundred fifty degrees celsius. So the fibers then
take on oxygen atoms from the air while in the
this oven. Now this is not the actual carbonization process here.
This is just pre treatment, kind of like when you
(02:38):
take your car in to get car washed, and this
is the pre wash part of the wash. We should
probably do an episode about car washes at some point
and find out which one which of those stages are
actually necessary. But getting back to the carbon fiber, the
incorporation of oxygen atoms into the molecular structure of the
fibers make the fibers actually resistant to high heat. It's
(02:59):
very import because of an upcoming step. Now. At that time,
the color of these precursor fibers changes as it oxidizes
and eventually turns black. So whenever you hear something like
carbon black, and yeah, it's that particular color. Like I
remember this all the time in video games where you're
choosing your like halo, particularly where you're choosing your armor colors,
(03:23):
it's because it's taking it from the carbon fiber color
and the color tends to be black because that's what
happens through the oxidation phase. So next you put these
oxidized fibers, the ones that have been tempered for high
heat to go into another furnace, and this one has
controlled amounts of other gases, but not oxygen, because you
don't want the fibers to burn, right, because in the
(03:45):
presence of oxygen, those fibers become fuel and then you
just get fire, right, and then an ash is less strong. Yeah. Yeah,
if you just burn up your material, you are not
doing it right. So what you have to do is
you have to have these other gases that can enter
deuce other types of atoms into the molecular structure, for
instance hydrogen perhaps, but non oxygen, so that way you
(04:07):
don't actually have a fire, you don't end up burning
the stuff, right. So, so with this tremendous heat, the
the fibers vibrate and the atoms that are not carbon
vibrate right out of this stuff, resulting in this carbonized
material exactly. So we get these carbon atoms and they
are becoming these tightly packed crystals that run parallel to
(04:30):
the length of the fiber. The fibers then go through
a bath of electrically charged water which etches the surface
of the fibers. It actually carves into the surface of
the fiber a little bit, and those etched surfaces create
anchor points for resin. Yeah, because otherwise, you know, the
resin wouldn't necessarily adhere evenly to the carbon fiber, making
(04:51):
it less useful. This is a way of sort of
giving those little hand holds. I think of it like
a rock wall with the little handholds in them, similar
to that. So net you have to spray the fibers
with a light resin. Now that that is important for
two reasons. It helps improve the fiber's material strength, and
it creates a bonding agent for any future resin that
would be applied to that carbon fiber. So this is
(05:14):
not the stuff that makes carbon fiber uh adhere to
a specific shape. It's not multiple right. This is just
so that if you exactly if you want to apply
multiple resin to it, that resin will adhere better. So
everything here is all about pre treating this stuff so
that it can eventually be put through whatever manufacturing process
(05:35):
you want to continue down the road in order to
get at whatever you're making, for example, a golf club,
um or an airplane. Who knows you could do either
with these sort of stuff. So then you have the
finished carbon fiber, which is called a carbon fiber toe,
and you wind that on a spool. So this is
the stuff that other companies buy as raw material, which
(05:58):
then they can braid, eve mold, or otherwise altered to
make into their final product. Now, carbon fiber toes can
also be grouped together in larger amounts called a web. Now,
these webs can be put through a process that ends
with a sheet of carbon fiber material. It's kind of cool.
It looks like just an enormous black sheet of fabric,
(06:19):
but that fabric is actually carbon fiber. So that fabric
is five times stronger than steel and lighter than steel,
and more more, it can be stiffer than steel if
you apply the resin to it. I mean, it's it's
interesting to think that something that looks like cloth could
have these properties. Now, see the web is sandwich between
sheets of paper to have a resin coating on them.
(06:41):
Sounds familiar, right, got a lot of resin in this process.
But these sheets are pulled through a high temperature pair
of rollers. So think of the ringers we talked about
with the washing machines, same sort of thing. You're putting
this whole thing. Those those rollers are are at a
high temperature. They're pressed together really tightly. And what this
does is you get this protective layer over that that
(07:03):
carbon fiber sheet, and then you remove the two pieces
of paper. They just peel away because part of the
material in there is kind of like a nose stick coating,
sort of like teflon. And so you pull the paper
away and you roll the the carbon fiber material, like
the big sheet of material onto giant, giant spools. You
(07:26):
do have to put a little polyvinyl coating on them
so that way it's actually like to itself exactly. But
they look like, and I am not the only one
to have used this comparison enormous fruit roll ups, and
like enormous fruit roll ups, they have that little plastic
coating to keep it from sticking to it or fruit
leather if you prefer, let's proprietarily yeah, um, but but yeah,
(07:50):
that that that resin job there reminds me a lot
of if you, as a child ever made ever preserved
leaves or flowers and wax paper by by ironing it
down so that so that you've got that thin layer
of wax similar to similar, very similar. So now this
entire process, Uh, does have some downsides to it. Not
(08:12):
the flower pressing thing. No, no, no, no, carbon fiber
if you're not careful, the flower pressing thing too. But no,
I'm specifically talking about creating carbon fiber and not just
the carbon fiber sheets. I'm just talking about the whole
process of carbon fiber in general. One of those is
that it tends to give off a lot of dangerous gases,
including carbon monoxide. So the smokes and tars that are
(08:34):
given off in this process are not necessarily poisonous, but
can contribute to serious health issues with prolonged exposure. So
one of the things that's really important in the facilities
that make carbon fibers is that they have really good
ventilation so that the people who work inside them don't
get sick over time, sure, and really good collections so
that you're not polluting the environment. Yeah, So this is
(08:54):
a process that could potentially be harmful to the environment
just through the production process. Now, we talked in the
last podcast about how the fact that it's lighter and
stronger than steel means that using it for vehicles means
you use less fuel for that vehicle, which efficient. Yeah,
and it makes it environmentally friendly from a fuel consumption process.
(09:15):
But like all things, you have to look at the
enormous picture, which you know. It's one of those things
where every time I start getting really excited about technology,
thinking oh, clean energy, and then I start looking beyond
about how do you make the clean energy? And then
I think, yeah, there needs to be a magic button.
That's all I'm saying. But anyway, you you classify this
(09:37):
stuff according to the tent sile modulus of the fiber
tent file modulus. It's a measure of how stiff the
fiber is. Yeah, but that's that's the term within the
industry is tensile modulus. And I bet because because of
the way the world works, there is both an English
system and an international system for dealing with this. Yeah,
you are absolutely correct. So the English them would be
(10:01):
pounds of force per square inch of cross sectional area
also known as p S I PI, and then the
international system of units would be the PASCAL, which is
also known as force per unit area. So one pascal
is one newton of force per square meter, meaning that
it is interesting to try and convert between the two. Fortunately,
(10:24):
the the various sources we looked at spelled it all
out for us, so we didn't have to see, we
didn't have to do Yeah, we didn't have to worry
about being the ones who messed up a conversion. So
if these conversions are just let Google do that for me.
Not the Google usually messes up conversion. If I mess
up a conversion, it's because I accidentally didn't realize I
put the wrong unit in on one side of the conversion.
(10:47):
Uh So fortunately this case, we didn't have to worry
about that. So low modulus carbon fiber have a tensile
modulus below thirty four point eight million p s i
or two hundred forty million k p a that's kilo pascals.
And on the other end of the spectrum is the
ultra high modulus. There's a tensile modulus of seventy two
(11:08):
point five to one forty five million p s i
or five hundred million to one billion kilo pascals. Now,
in between those two extremes are levels like standard modulus,
intermediate modulus, and high modulus. And if you wanted to
compare it to steel, yeah, yeah, so for you know,
for baseline comparison, right, because often that's what we like
(11:30):
to look at right, carbon fiber versus steel. I mean,
otherwise why use carbon fiber at all if steel were better.
So steel has a tensile modulus of around twenty nine
million p s i or two hundred million kilo pascals,
so close, but but not even reaching the low modulus. Yeah. Yeah,
the low modulus was thirty four point eight million p
(11:50):
s i or two d forty million kilo pascals. So
that means that if you go with the strongest carbon fibers,
you get ten times the strength of steel, right, the
tin style modulus if you want to be really picky,
but yes, strength is how we usually call it. So
steel is five times heavier than carbon fiber, and carbon
fibers ten times stronger than steel. Yeah, if you're using
(12:12):
the ultra high version. So that's pretty cool, and that
is I mean again one of the big reasons why
everyone is is really excited by this this particular type
of material. Oh absolutely, but but okay, So aside from
those pollution related drawbacks that we mentioned earlier, there are
unfortunately some others with this material. We touched on them
(12:33):
briefly in the previous episode, but let's go a little
bit further into them. However, before we do so, let
us take a quick break to thank our sponsor. I
like saving the negative stuff for after the sponsor break.
Let's talk about some drawbacks. All right. So we mentioned
(12:56):
earlier in our first episode in fact, that carbon fiber
is expensive, and we mean really expensive. It's like ten
dollars a pound on the low end, whereas steel is
something like a dollar per pound. Now we should say
this is an improvement from twenty years ago. In right,
carbon fiber back then cost a hundred and fifty bucks
a pound, So the prices dropped precipitously, one might say,
(13:19):
since the nineties, still more expensive than steel. Yeah, and
and the price is because of that really intricate manufacturing
process that we've just talked through. Um, the raw materials
are more like four dollars per pound, which, to be fair,
is still four times what steel costs. Yeah, I mean,
you're you. And that's just to make those raw materials
(13:39):
I mean, or by those raw materials before you put
them through the carbon fiber process. So what exactly is
making the process expensive? Okay? First off, those furnaces, uh,
not the original furnaces, but the carbonization, right, they run
around or even an excess of a thousand degrees celsius,
(13:59):
which is over eighteen hundred degrees fahrenheit, meaning you've got
a really big power bill. I always worry if I've
let the oven on. Yeah, the process uses some five
times more energy than steel production. Okay. Also, venting the
waste materials safely is expensive. We talked about how carbon
monoxide is one of the big things that's led out
(14:21):
in this process, right right, Um, and weaving the stuff
for maximum safety is expensive. You have to use a
lot of fibers to compensate for for potential imperfections in
the weave that could cause strain and eventual breakage within
the fabric. Um. Also, it takes longer to create a
piece than it does to just stamp out a piece
of steel. You know. It's it's this huge three part process. Um.
(14:45):
It takes an hour to cure the resin alone. So
we're talking we're talking about bunches of time. Okay, But
all right, I see here you actually looked more into
the reson itself. I'm really interested in this process, right Okay.
So if you make it with the most common resin,
which is thermos set resin, it's in that shape forever. UM.
It's it's really difficult to reef or melt down or
(15:08):
recycle thermo set resin carbon fiber. UM. If you do
try to recycle this stuff, that the resulting carbon fiber
is weaker, it's too weak to be used, for example,
in a car body for for safety standards. So there's
greater potential for waste in both manufacturing and the post
consumer market. I mean, if if you set this thing wrong,
(15:29):
it's I mean you've basically just wasted this huge, expensive process.
So if your molds are off even by a little bit,
then you're you're stuck with the shape that you've got,
and you can't easily break it down and just make
a new one because it's going to be less strong.
It'll be too weak to really possibly depending upon what
the application was. Yeah. Yeah, so that that's a big draw. Yeah. UM.
(15:52):
There are some possible solutions to this that the industry
is looking into other than the manufacturing streamlining that Jonathan
was talking about earlier. UM, and those are using strong
acrylics in place of carbon fibers, or perhaps in combination
with carbon fibers. UM. They're experimenting with heating the stuff
(16:12):
with plasma instead of the thermal furnaces that are currently
in use. You know, I love plasma furnaces. They're pretty
they're pretty cool. Not literally length about plasma furnaces, so
um or or possibly using re multiple thermoplastic resins in
place of the permanent thermoset resins that are currently in use.
(16:32):
Now that's interesting. Now, obviously with that particular approach, you
would have to make sure whatever application you are using,
uh the carbon fiber for wasn't going to bring it
into contact with temperatures too high. So obviously, like exactly
that would be. That would be one where I think
the permanent thermo set would definitely be the way to
go because they undergo such extremes and temperature that anything
(16:57):
that could potentially weaken the the structure would be a
big negative for that particular application. Sure, one more downside
before we get onto happier news though, Um, the a
lot of the precursor materials are petroleum based and so
you know which which obviously, petroleum is an expensive and
(17:20):
non renewable resource unless you've got a few billion years
to play with. Yeah, if you don't mind you know,
stretching out your lifespan too. Beyond what is conceivable, then
you're fine. But otherwise you could reach a point where
in years we're gonna have the singularities. That's true, that's true.
So I guess millions of years. I guess it's really millions,
not billions of years. I apologize, guys, hundreds of millions
(17:43):
of years. So it's fine. I was overstating things exaggeration
in order to make a point. But but so researchers
are looking into renewable precursors like lignant, which is a
would by product that would be really useful. So it's
kind of funny too, because in a way, it's look
back to the earliest days of carbon fibers where we
were using cotton and bamboo to create carbon fiber. Time
(18:06):
for another quick break, and we'll be right back. Now.
Let's talk about some of the other benefits when when
you treat this carbon fiber with the right resin ends
up being resistant to corrosives, which makes it an ideal
material for pipes that tend to carry corrosive liquids, and
(18:29):
their fatigue properties are better than any metal. So by
having these pipes, you don't have to worry about them
wearing out a quickly. They're not going to corrode based
upon whatever materials moving through them, and they are themselves
in nerts, so you don't have to worry about chemical
reactions going on in there. So that would be one
of the big benefits if we were able to make
(18:50):
enough of it to be used in that kind of infrastructure. Sure. Also,
that strength really is impressive. Formula one race cars are
made all of carbon fiber. Well, I guess not all
of carbon fiber. I mean, you know they've got pieces, right,
but the body is uh, and that's more as a
safety regulation than anything else. So so if we could
(19:11):
bring down the cost of the manufacturer, it could potentially
save lives. Sure yeah, yeah, you know, you end up
making even basic car designs much stronger just by switching
the materials they're made out of. And then, uh, something
kind of cool that I read before we started, uh
really getting into this podcast. It was just a neat
little little news item, and uh, I encourage folks are
(19:33):
interested to go and look up the Mark one three
D printer. It's built as the world's first three D
printer designed to print continuous carbon fiber. So it uses
a process called composite filament fabrication or CFF, which embeds
continuous strands of fibers in a thermoplastic matrix, So you
could actually print carbon fiber pieces like you could print
(19:57):
various components in carbon fiber, right with that thermoplastic that
I was talking about being being remultiple and remultiple, And
so you might be thinking, hey, how much would one
of these things run me? So if you want to
pre order one of these, because they don't they haven't
been out on the market yet, you can pre order one.
Uh the cost is a lowly four thousand nine dollars,
(20:19):
which you know, printers really isn't that expensive. I mean,
if you're looking at at three D printers that are
printing in UH an a BS plastic, which is typically
what other three D printers use, those tend to be
less expensive, but ABS plastic is not as strong. In fact,
the print of material materials are supposed to be up
to twenty times stiffer and five times stronger than a
(20:40):
BS plastic parts. So if you are building things that
have a lot of wear to them over time, this
could be a good solution because it means you don't
have to print replacements as frequently. Sure, although I mean
I imagine that the cash to purchase the materials to
put into your printer. Yeah, it might be more expensive
(21:00):
to get the actual like quote unquote the toner than
a BS, So that is something else to take into consideration.
But yeah, so this material has has a huge amount
of current use and future promise. Yeah. In fact, I
remember some people even going so far as to look
into the use of carbon fibers as a potential tether
(21:21):
material for space elevator. But as it turns out when
you do the math, it looks like, uh, carbon fibers
wouldn't be strong enough. It wouldn't have the tin stile
strength to withstand the forces. Yeah, because it's not quite
as strong as carbon nanotubes. I mean, the problem with
carbon nano tubes being there that you know, you can't
get them as long as you can carbon. Yeah, producing
(21:41):
carbon nanotubes is a big problem right now. Like, while
we're getting closer and closer to to really efficient means
of making carbon fiber more plentiful due to the manufacturing
process improvements over time, we're a long way with carbon nanotubes.
I mean, we've seen some promising develop elements, but you
know it's still gonna be a while. I hope you
(22:03):
enjoyed that classic episode of tech Stuff. We're going to
uh take another look at carbon fiber soon. I think
I was considering it earlier. I think I'm pretty firm
on that. If you have suggestions for things I should
tackle in future episodes of tech Stuff, reach out to me.
The best way to do that is over on Twitter.
The handle for the show is text Stuff H s
(22:24):
W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text
Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts
from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app,
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