High-Performance Carbon Fiber Paper Enabled by Amino Resin-Derived Low-Temperature Carbonization

Conventional phenolic-resin-based carbon fiber paper (CFP) typically suffers from low mechanical strength, poor toughness, insufficient pore interconnectivity, and a reliance on extreme high-temperature graphitization to attain high conductivity. This study employs a novel melamine-hexamethylenediamine (MH) thermosetting resin as the binder to fabricate MH resin-based CFP (MHCFP). Through the synergistic effects of robust interfacial bonding, triazine-ring-induced low-temperature formation of sp2 carbon clusters, and nitrogen doping, the MHCFP achieves comprehensive performance superiority over the phenol-formaldehyde (PF)-based CFP (PFCFP) at moderate carbonization temperatures (500–700 °C): MHCFP exhibits superior toughness, tensile strengths of 23–45 MPa (vs. PFCFP’s 8–18 MPa), and in-plane resistivity of 24–39 mΩ·cm (vs. PFCFP’s 54–83 mΩ·cm). Furthermore, MHCFP possesses a highly open macroporous structure (porosity > 78%), ensuring excellent gas permeability and water management capability. This work presents a promising low-temperature strategy for developing high-performance CFP, showing great potential for next-generation proton exchange membrane fuel cell gas diffusion layers.