Structure of Polyacrylonitrile Fibers Produced from N-Methylmorpholine-N-Oxide Solutions

Structural and morphological evolution of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) samples from starting powder of a ternary copolymer to fibers produced from concentrated solutions of PAN in N-methylmorpholine-N-oxide (NMMO) was studied using x-ray diffraction for the first time. X-ray exposures in transmission and reflection geometries allowed the structures of outer and inner parts of the PAN fibers to be differentiated. It was shown that a shell—core structure formed in the precipitation bath during fiber spinning. A comparison of x-ray diffraction patterns of fibers spun using the NMMO process and industrial samples spun from DMSO and aqueous sodium thiocyanate solutions did not reveal fundamental structural differences.