Investigation of the Effect of Addition of Different Boron Compounds on Thermal Properties of Polyacrylonitrile-co-Vinyl Acetate Fibers Produced by Wet Spinning Method

In this article, the effect of different boron compounds additives on the thermal properties of wet spun polyacrylonitrile-co-vinyl acetate P(AN-VAc) fibers was investigated. Different boron compounds (boric acid (BA), borax (B), zinc borate (ZB) and their binary mixtures) were added to fiber spinning solutions in order to improve the thermal characteristics of P(AN-VAc) fibers. For all boron-added P(AN-VAc) fibers except the reference fiber sample, the proportions of (P(AN-VAc)) and boron compounds were kept constant at 90% and 10%, respectively. Boron-free fiber produced from 100% P(AN-VAc) was used as the reference fiber sample. While characteristic peaks of P(AN-VAc) were observed in the Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR) spectra of all fibers produced with or without boron additives, peaks belonging to boron compounds were also observed in the FTIR spectra of boron-added fibers. The results obtained from the measurements of thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) indicated that there were significant improvements in the thermal resistance of boron-added P(AN-VAc) fibers compared to boron-free P(AN-VAc) fiber. As a result, it was determined that the most effective boron compounds on the thermal resistance of the P(AN-VAc) fibers were ZB, BA and B, respectively.