Preparation of a high-performance synthetic pitch from aromatic hydrocarbons containing N/Cl

The preparation of a synthetic pitch from aromatic monomers could easily regulate structure orientation at the molecular level, which would be useful in fabrication. An isotropic synthetic pitch was prepared by a chlorine- and/or nitrogen-induced substitution polymerization reaction method using aromatic hydrocarbon precursors containing Cl and N, which for this study were chloromethyl naphthalene and quinoline. This method was verified by investigating the structural changes under different synthesis conditions, and the synthesis mechanism induced by aromatics containing Cl was also probed. The result shows that the pyridinic N in quinoline contains a lone pair of electrons, and is an effective active site to induce the polymerization reaction by coupling with aromatic hydrocarbons containing Cl. The reaction between such free radicals causes strong homopolymerization and oligomerization. A higher reaction temperature and longer reaction time significantly increased the degree of polymerization and thus increased the softening point of the pitch. A linear molecular structure was formed by the Cl substitution reaction, which produced a highly spinnable pitch with a softening point of 258.6 °C, and carbon fibers with a tensile strength of 1 163.82 MPa were obtained. This study provides a relatively simple and safe method for the preparation of high-quality spinnable pitch.