Abstract
Poly-p-phenylenebenzobisoxazole, Zylon™, is a fibre with numerous applications in the aerospace and sports (sail cloth, ski poles and tennis racquets) industries and was developed by the Toyobo Company in Japan. It is a lightweight material having higher tensile modulus and strength than graphite.
From Raman nanostress mappings, using high resolution Raman piezospectroscopy, HRRP and electron microscopy, we have attempted to determine the structural changes occurring in two poly-p-phenylenebenzobisoxazole fibres prepared under different processing conditions. Fibre A was coagulated in aqueous phosphoric acid and fibre B was produced by heat treating fibre A at 650 °C under 0.7 GPa tension. We reveal the ordered and disordered morphology relating this to (probable) liquid crystal formation.