The CAMROSE BOOSTER, May 3, 2016 – Page 14
Alberta well-situated for carbon fibre production By Dan Jensen
Camrose resident Deanne Morrow feels it is time to start looking at other uses for Alberta’s rich oil and gas reserves. “As far as I am concerned our oil industry in Alberta has changed forever,” said Morrow, who was guest speaker at a Rotary dinner at the Best Western Plus Camrose Resort Casino April 11. “It is not going to be the same so let’s get over it and get on with discovering the next thing we can do.” Morrow and her husband, Anthony Hladun, have made application to Cenovus Energy for technological support in developing carbon fibre technologies, and are seeking funding from Alberta Innovates Technology Futures to study the feasibility of a carbon fibre processing facility. They will also be preparing summaries for Premier Rachel Notley and Alberta MLAs to let them know that carbon fibre production is something they should be considering. “There are new applications daily for carbon fibre world wide,” said Morrow, who taught technical communication and public speaking at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Engineering and was a director of the university’s software engineering management program. “It is the most exciting thing I have ever been involved with. Every day you look on the computer and there is something new happening in the (carbon fibre) world.” Carbon fibre is produced in relatively limited quantities via pitch based and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) manufacturing processes. “The cost of making carbon fibre out of polyacrylonitrile is very high but pitch-based carbon fibre is cheaper and that is what we have,” said Morrow. “Alberta has pitch (bitumin) and Alberta has energy to turn that pitch into carbon fibre.” Morrow and Hladun have been in conversation with the University of Tennessee Space Institute (UTSI), which has a multimillion dollar lab designed specifically to spin pitch into carbon fibre. “The lab does experiments so you can test various (spinning) methods so you can get the best carbon fibre for whatever you are putting in the front end,” said Morrow. “The director of UTSI wants to work with Albertans. He thinks this is very exciting.” The use of carbon fibre has increased rapidly over the years to the extent that total production capacity does not meet the demand. Montreal-based Texonic
Anthony Hladun and Deanne Morrow, centre, met recently with Margot Begin, left, executive director of the Battle River Alliance for Economic Development and Matt Cornall, right, technology development advisor for Alberta Innovates.
The sprayer with 150 foot carbon fibre boom reduces soil compaction because of its light weight.
More professional hockey players are using carbon fibre hockey sticks.
spins a large number of technical fibres shipped in from the United States, while Canadian aeronautical companies use carbon fibre to build airplanes or airplane parts. Pratt and Whitney has just developed a new turbo fan engine, half of which is built from carbon fibre, and Sea Winds
Catamarans uses carbon fibre for the production of its boats. “All these people need carbon fibre,” said Morrow. “They are importing it from around the world because we don’t have it here. No one in Canada is spinning carbon fibre.” Morrow noted that the
Alberta Research Council started spinning carbon fibre from Alberta bitumin in its lab in the 1990s but stopped because of the money that was coming from oil and gas. She said that in order to get the carbon fibre industry going again, research needs to be done to determine the type of bitumin that was used, the precise process that was used to produce the carbon fibre, and the quality of the final product. “Once you revisit the research you need to come up with a pitch spinning lab in order to test the process. You need a place where you can spin the pitch so you can clarify the best processes to use today. After that you need a pilot plant so you can produce enough carbon fibre to see if there is a market for it, because carbon fibres differ depending on the processes and feedstock that are used.” If it is determined that a market does exist, the next step would be to build a commercial facility. “This is where the big money comes in,” said Morrow. It could be a multi million dollar commercial facility that is a Crown corporation or a private public partnership.” While PAN-based carbon fibre is the most common, it is more expensive to manufacture and therefore limited to high end applications (used primarily by aerospace and sporting equipment industries). Pitch fibres, on the other hand, may offer designers a different profile. They are easily customized to meet specific applications and often have a higher modulus, or stiffness than conventional PAN fibres. They are intrinsically more pure electrochemically, and have higher ionic intercalation.
Mesophase pitch fibres may also possess higher thermal and electrical conductivity, and different friction properties. More details will not be known until more testing is done. “Carbon fibre is half the weight of aluminum, it is five times stronger than steel, and it has very high shock absorption,” said Morrow. “It is flexible when you need it to be, will not rust or corrode ever and it is largely chemical resistant.” Morrow presented slides showing that the frame of the new BMW i3 car, which is made of carbon fibre, is light enough that it can be lifted by two persons, and that the half of the materials in the Boeing 787 airplane are made from carbon fibre composites. Another slide pictured Yo Yo Ma with his cello that is made almost completely from carbon fibre. “The joy of carbon fibre instruments for musicians is that they never go out of tune,” said Morrow. “You don’t have to worry about storage; it doesn’t matter if it is wet or dry, it (the instrument) is always going to sound the same and apparently the sound is crystal clear.” Morrow said ninety per cent of paralympic athletes use carbon fibre prosthetics. “The feet (prosthetics) they use are called cheetah PAWS and they store energy. When you step down on them it is like stepping on a trampoline. They have give and when you take off you actually leap and jump higher than people with ordinary feet.” Carbon fibre is being used more and more in the construction process to strengthen structures and buildings. “If you want to make bridges strong enough to last 100 years like you have to in Britain, you can augment the structure with carbon fibre,” said Morrow. “If you want to repair aging structures like bridges without having to tear them down and replace them you can use carbon fibre cables and patches. It is light and it is fast compared to tearing down and rebuilding a bridge.” The new technology even has applications in farming. “The John Deere sprayer with 150 foot carbon fibre boom is so light that you don’t get the soil compaction you get with an ordinary sprayer,” said Morrow. “And the boom is absolutely chemical resistant, so it doesn’t matter what you spray through there. It never plugs the boom.” Morrow said there are new applications for carbon fibre every day.