Carbon fiber-reinforced resin composition, method for manufacturing carbon fiber-reinforced resin composition, molding material, method for manufacturing molding material, and carbon fiber-reinforced resin molded article

A carbon fiber-reinforced resin composition comprising:

• (i) sizing agent-coated carbon fibers in which carbon fibers are coated with a sizing agent;
• and
• (ii) a matrix resin comprising a thermoplastic resin or a radical polymerizable resin;
• wherein
• the sizing agent comprises at least:
• an aliphatic epoxy compound (A), wherein the aliphatic epoxy compound (A) is a polyether polyepoxy compound having two or more epoxy groups in a molecule and/or a polyol polyepoxy compound having two or more epoxy groups in a molecule;
• an aromatic epoxy compound (B1) as an aromatic compound (B), wherein the aromatic epoxy compound (B1) is a bisphenol A epoxy compound or a bisphenol F epoxy compound;
• a mass ratio of the aliphatic epoxy compound (A) and the aromatic epoxy compound (B1) in the sizing agent is 60/40 to 80/20;
• each of the aliphatic epoxy compound (A) and the aromatic epoxy compound (B1) has a surface tension of 37 mJ/m2 to 45 mJ/m2 at 125° C.;
• the difference in the surface tensions between the aliphatic epoxy compound (A) and the aromatic epoxy compound (B1) is 3 mJ/m2 or less at 125° C.;
• and
• the sizing agent-coated carbon fibers have a ratio (a)/(b) of 0.50 to 0.90 where (a) is a height (cps) of a component having a binding energy (284.6 eV) attributed to CHx, C—C, and C═C and (b) is a height (cps) of a component having binding energy (286.1 eV) attributed to C—O in a C1s core spectrum of a surface of the sizing agent of the sizing agent-coated carbon fibers measured by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy using AlKα1,2 as an X-ray source at a photoelectron takeoff angle of 15°.