Harper International, Buffalo, N.Y., has been awarded a contract to engineer and manufacture a Pitch Carbon Fiber Stabilization Mesh Belt Oven system to be installed at the University of Kentucky’s Center for Applied Energy Research (CAER), located in Lexington.
The equipment delivery and start-up services are scheduled within 2022. This scientific-scale equipment will be used by researchers at University of Kentucky to convert mesophase pitch, a liquid crystal derived from coal tar, into an oxidized carbon fiber precursor material. CAER’s research and investigation into coal-derived precursor material processes aims to lower the cost of producing high quality carbon fibers by over 50 percent, enabling application into widespread use such as automotive composite materials.
“The Oxidation Oven system is a critical piece of our fiber development facility at CAER,” said Matt Weisenberger, associate director of the Carbon Materials Technologies Group.
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