Reactivity between carbon fibres and anhydride. A study by radiochemical titration and tof-sims analysis

This paper deals with the radiochemical titration of carbon fibres (ex-PAN AS4 from Hercules) with ¹⁴C labelled succinic anhydride in view of quantifying the reactivity between anhydride groups and the functionalities (amine, hydroxyl, etc.) of C fibres. A transesterification reaction due to the chemical labelling procedure is observed and is confirmed by time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) analyses. It is finally used for discriminating between the reactivity of anhydride towards amino groups and other fibre functionalities. © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved