Preparation of continuous Si-Fe-C-O functional ceramic fibers

A new polymer named polyferrocarbosilane(PFCS) was prepared from polydimethylsilane and ferrocene. The spinnability of this polymer can be tailored by controlling the content of ferrocene in the polymer. The prepared polymer was spun into a continuous polymer fiber that was subsequently cured in air and heat-treated finally in N2 up to 1350 °C for conversion into Si-Fe-C-O fibers. The resulted Si-Fe-C-O fibers display low specific resistance and magnetic property due to the existence of Fe, which also reduces the specific resistance significantly to 10−2 Ωcm at room temperature when the amount of ferrocene in feed is as low as 3.0% (mass fraction). The resulted Si-Fe-C-O fibers, with C/Si molar ratio of about 1.3 and the maximum Fe content of about 2.0% (mole fraction), are composed of β-SiC and small amount of Fe3Si-like crystalline and have an average tensile strength of about 2.0 GPa.