Coal to Carbon Fibers

This report documents activities carried out by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and by Ramaco Carbon LLC under CRADA project NFE-20-08273 entitled “Coal to Carbon Fibers.” This project’s main objective was the demonstration of commercially relevant utilization of coal as a precursor for high-value-added products, such as carbon fibers. The specific objectives included the following: • Deploy a production platform for the conversion of coal into carbon fibers in a way that utilizes preexisting base technologies and accelerates the commercialization of coal to carbon fibers. • Rapid deployment and utilization of versatile conversion test beds for accommodating preexisting base technologies for both the conversion of coal-to-pitch (proven donor solvent liquefaction techniques) and conversion of pitch-to-fiber (proven melt spun and melt blown techniques). Results from the generation of an isotropic pitch from a subbituminous coal through the low severity direct coal liquefaction process are presented. Carbon fibers were produced from this isotropic pitch through melt spinning and melt blowing.