Renewed interest in the reinforced carbon graphite composites has intrigued the community in the advanced materials fields. In this work, we present a simple carbon nanofibers reinforced carbon graphite composites synthetic method by incorporating mixture of coal tar pitch, synthetic graphite, pitch coke and the dispersion liquid of carbon nanofibers via liquid-phase mixing process. The impact of carbon nanofiber utilization on the microstructures and mechanical properties of carbon graphite composites are studied systematically. The covalent surface modification of carbon nanofibers effectively improves its microstructure and thereby promotes the carbon graphite composites’ dispersion behavior. We propose that a small amount of carbon nanofibers could promote the carbonization process of carbon graphite composites, facilitating the densification of carbon graphite composites and reducing the undesired open porosity. The amount of 0.7 wt % of carbon nanofiber concentration allows the enhancement of bend and compressive strength of carbon graphite composites up to 36.50 MPa and 60.46 MPa, increased by 167.9% and 146.9% compared with the pure carbon graphite composite, respectively. Our findings can be rationalized due to the improvement in the mechanical strength of carbon graphite composites could be attributed due to pull-out of carbon nanofibers from the matrix and bridging effect across the crack pores within the matrix.

In the present work, a comparative study of the mechanical behavior of two series of elastomeric composites, based on carboxylated styrene butadiene rubber (X-SBR) and reinforced with rice bran carbon (RBC) and graphite, is reported. Hybrid composites of X-SBR filled with RBC-graphite were also investigated in terms of the cure characteristics, hardness, tensile properties, abrasion resistance, and swelling. It was observed that the cure times decreased with the incorporation of a carbon filler whereas the torque difference, tensile strength, tensile modulus, hardness, and swelling resistance increased compared to the neat X-SBR revealing a favorable characteristic of crosslinking. Dynamic rheological analysis showed that the G' values of the composites, upon the addition of RBC-graphite, were changed to some extent. This demonstrates that the presence of a strongly developed network of fillers will ensure a reinforcing characteristic in a polymer matrix.