What do we have common with Coca Cola, McDonald’s and KFC? We all have a secret recipe!
In fact, our own super-secret recipe was crucial to the creation of the first Australian carbon fibre, made entirely from scratch.
Incredibly strong and lightweight, carbon fibre is a material of the future. It can be used in everything from bikes to satellites, fighter jets to high performance cars.
It took us years of research to develop Australia’s first “home grown” carbon fibre, mainly because only a handful of companies around the world can actually make the material. Each of those companies has their own secret formula that they zealously protect, so we had to create our own secret recipe so that we could produce carbon fibre here in Australia.
For Australian companies that use carbon fibre to make their products it’s a potential game changer. Previously, Australia’s carbon fibre industry focussed on research and development, and were forced to use imported carbon fibre to make products here.
Now there’s the potential to greatly expand and create a new industry for Australia by mass-producing this advanced material. We’re also working on making it stronger and of a higher quality than anywhere else in the world.
Australia’s first carbon fibre was created using our secret polymer formula, spun on the joint CSIRO/ Deakin University wet spinning line, then carbonised at Deakin’s “Carbon Nexus” facility. It’s a great example of putting our Advanced Manufacturing Roadmap into action: using Australia’s scientific and industrial strengths to focus on advanced, high value products.
All of the work occurred in Australia’s carbon fibre capital, Geelong, and is a major leap forward in turning the region into an international carbon fibre centre.
9th November 2017 at 4:30 pm
So can anyone explain to me what the actual difference between the carbon fibres is? If all carbon fibres are essentially long chains of carbon, then dont they all have the same properties, regardless of the recipe to make them. Are CSIRO fibres longer, stronger, lighter, more black, less expensive?
10th November 2017 at 10:09 am
Hey Chris,
There are many different grades of carbon fibre available on the market (generally graded on strength and modulus) so not all carbon fibres are the same. Carbon fibre properties predominantly come from the polymer material they originate from and the processing of this polymer into fibres (referred to as white fibre or precursor). Our technology, or secret recipe, is in the polymerisation process that is used to produce this polymer. Our technology produces a polymer with a high molecular weight and low polydispersity, what this means is you get more of the good stuff. This high quality polymer then has flow on effects during processing which results in a superior fibre for carbonising.
Cheers,
Ellen
9th November 2017 at 9:29 am
Amazing stuff! I can only imagine what more could be achieved if the Government increased funding to levels worthy of such innovators? Keep up the brilliant work 🙂
9th November 2017 at 3:26 am
Brilliant news
8th November 2017 at 11:40 pm
I did a blog post on this very important new technology. I could not use your video because I coujld not find a URL for it. If you want your videos to have impact beyond your own readers, put them in YouTube or Vimeo. I took your post out to my 1,000 readers and could not show them your wonderful video.
9th November 2017 at 8:03 am
Hey Richard,
Our videos are uploaded onto to our Vimeo and/or YouTube channel and then embedded on our blog. You can find it here:
and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trJ1R7kADvY
Cheers,
Ellen
8th November 2017 at 9:25 pm
Fabulous! Wish the govt would realise our incredibly intelligent and productive research industries and capitalise on their discoveries!!