Structural changes of high modulus carbon fiber by oxidation in carbon dioxide gas using SEM, TEM, and XRD have been observed. It was shown that the originally high modulus carbon fiber is composed of highly ordered graphitic crystalline area and non-crystalline area. It was observed that the La increases during the whole oxidation process. It was shown that the oxidation of high modulus carbon fiber initiates at the non-crystalline area and at the ends of fiber. The large pores developed in fiber by direction of fiber length at high temperature (1,100℃), and the small pores developed on the fiber surface at low temperature (900℃). In conclusion, it is found that the oxidation of the carbon fiber was progressed through the imperfection.

Two types of carbon fiber based high modulus- and isotropic-pitch were exposed to isothermal oxidation in air and CO2 gas and the weight change was measured by TGA apparatus. The kinetic equation was introduced f=1--(-atb) and the constant b was obtained in the range of 1.02~1.68 for the isotropic fiber and obtained 0.91~1.93 for the high modulus fiber respectively. In considering the effect of the atmosphere for isothermal oxidation, the value of the constant b obtained in the carbon dioxide was higher than that obtained in the air. Therefore, it was found that the pitch based carbon fiber shows sigmoidal characteristic when it is oxidized in the carbon dioxide. In addition, it was also found that kf = 0.5, which was reaction constant at f = 0.5, was a very useful parameter for evaluation of the oxidation reactivity of pitch based carbon fibers. According to the consideration, it is suggested that the conversion-time curves of the pitch based carbon fibers are correlated by normalized equation f=1--(-AτB), where τ=t/tf= 0.5.