Chemistry - Are there two compound resins that tolerate over 1000°C for glass/carbon fiber?

Solution 1:

In an oxygen-containing environment, no carbon-based polymer (which includes all epoxies) that I know of can tolerate 1000 C, at least not without significant degradation in mechanical strength.

There are two reasons for this:

One is that the carbon-carbon bonds will start to break down in large numbers at higher temperatures, and since the carbon-carbon to carbon-oxygen reaction is exothermic, if oxygen is around there will be no going back upon cooling.

The second is that even if the polymer doesn't chemically degrade, it will undergo a physical phase transition - it will melt, or at least soften. This can be compensated for by reinforcing with fiber or particles to make a composite. However, if it softens enough, a fiber composite will "delaminate" - the physical bonds holding the resin onto the reinforcment will come apart, and the composite will no longer be a composite.

Here is an interesting study that talks about both mechanisms of degradation, and lists several systems with their correpsonding melt and thermal decomposition temperatures. Polytetrafluoroethylene has the highest thermal decomposition temperature in this study, at 775 K (502 C).

Non-carbon polymers might be an option, although the tradeoff is that they are weaker and composite options are a lot more limited. Silicon-based polymers generally withstand higher temperatures than carbon analogues, but I wasn't able to find any that can approach 1000 C. Fluoro-polymers are another possibility - as you can see from the reference, they tend to have much higher stability in terms of thermal decomposition. There might be a fluoro-epoxy resin out there. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that the products of fluoro-polymer decomposition are particularly toxic and reactive, and so the applications where they could safely be used at high temperatures are probably very, very limited.

Edit in response to questions

One question regarding the "oxygen around", would this also include if layers of epoxy were applied as a extra layer ontop of the carbon or would it need to be a complete vacuum in order to prohibit oxidization?

If you had a layered carbon/polymer composite, the chemical reaction with the oxygen wouldn't start at the polymer-carbon interface, it would start at the surface exposed to oxygen. However, since the reaction is exothermic, once it starts burning, it would go quickly. The carbon would burn too at these temperatures. An inert atmosphere would prevent that reaction, but it would still thermally decompose - the difference would be that hopefully the decomposition wouldn't be as exothermic, and therefore would go more slowly. Now for epoxies, they have oxygen in the polymer structure. At high temperatures, that oxygen will react and the polymer will break apart whether there is an inert atmosphere or not.

Solution 2:

Polyether ether ketone (PEEK) should be good to go up to 250 °C.

Polybenzimidazoles (PBIs) are stable up to temperatures of 500 °C, probably more. Protective suits for fire fighters are made from this material.

In order to withstand higher temperatures (nose cone of a Space Shuttle), carbon-reinforced carbon can be used.