Carbon fabrics are widely used in polymer based composites. Nowadays, most of the advanced high-performance composites are based on thermosetting polymer matrices such as epoxy resin. Thermoplastics have received high attention as polymer matrices due to their low curing duration, high chemical resistance, high recyclability, and mass production capability in comparison with thermosetting polymers. In this paper, we suggest thermoplastic based composite materials reinforced with carbon fibers. Composites based on polysulfone reinforced with carbon fabrics using polymer solvent impregnation were studied. It is well known that despite the excellent mechanical properties, carbon fibers possess poor wettability and adhesion to polymers because of the fiber surface chemical inertness and smoothness. Therefore, to improve the fiber-matrix interfacial interaction, the surface modification of the carbon fibers by thermal oxidation was used. It was shown that the surface modification resulted in a noticeable change in the functional composition of the carbon fibers' surface and increased the mechanical properties of the polysulfone based composites. Significant increase in composites mechanical properties and thermal stability as a result of carbon fiber surface modification was observed.
Keywords: carbon fibers; polymer-matrix composites; polysulfone; surface modification.