What is carbon fibre?
Believe it or not, carbon fibres were produced as far back as 1860. They were used in electric light bulbs, where cotton threads were carbonised to create the glowing filament.
It wasn't until 1958 that Roger Bacon created high performance carbon fibres, by heating strands of rayon made from purified cellulose, a product of wood pulp.
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From this point, the process quickly moved to using the semi-crystalline, organic polymer known as polyacrylonitrile, or PAN.
Due to performance issues, in the 1960s, experimental work led to the introduction of carbon fibres made from petroleum pitch derived from oil processing, giving the required performance gains.
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Since 1970 carbon fibre manufacture has become a global enterprise with a vast array of fibre types for many specialist applications.
Initially used in secondary structures in military application, the fibre can now be found as the major structure of Boeing and Airbus planes and in high performance cars.
