Electrochemical characterization of laser‐carbonized polyacrylonitrile nanofiber nonwovens

Abstract

Porous carbon materials represent prospective materials for absorbers, filters, and electronic applications. Carbon fibers with high surface areas can be produced from polyacrylonitrile and spun as thin fibers from solution. The resulting polymer fibers are first stabilized to obtain conjugated ribbons and then carbonized to graphitic structures in a second high‐temperature step in an inert atmosphere. In this study, we investigated a previously described fast laser‐heating process that delivered fibers with a higher crystallinity and surface area compared to the thermally carbonized fibers. In a subsequent KOH‐activation step, the crystalline domains were exfoliated, and the surface of the fibers became macroporous. This led to a reduced specific surface area but a higher capacitance compared to thermally carbonized nanofibers. We report the electrochemical properties of the electrochemical cells and discuss their potential applications. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018, 135, 46398.

Lignin use in nonwovens: A review

“…Lignin composites currently include polyethylene oxide (PEO) (Dallmeyer et al 2010;Schreiber 2012;Schreiber et al 2014;Poursorkhabi et al 2015;Bahi et al 2017;Cho et al 2020), polyacrylonitrile (PAN) (Zhao et al 2015;Ding et al 2016;Ogale et al 2016;Go et al 2018;Al Aiti et al 2020;Nie et al 2020;Yang et al 2020;Zhang et al 2020b), and polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) (Kubo and Kadla 2003;Lai et al 2014a;Nair et al 2014;Ma et al 2016;Ogale et al 2016;Beck et al 2017;Lu et al 2017Lu et al , 2018Uddin et al 2017;Aadil et al 2018;Ko et al 2018;Lee et al 2018;Lee et al 2019;Roman et al 2019;Zhang et al 2019;Camiré et al 2020;Cui et al 2021;Hou et al 2021), which are able to be used in air filtration (Chang et al 2017;Cui et al 2021), water purification (Lai et al 2014a;Bahi et al 2017;Beck et al 2017;Kwak et al 2018;Zhang et al 2019;Camiré et al 2021;Chen et al 2021;…”

Atmospheric Pressure Plasma-Jet Treatment of PAN-Nonwovens—Carbonization of Nanofiber Electrodes

“…Carbon fiber nonwovens represent interesting materials for electrodes in Li-batteries, fuel cells, and supercapacitors as well as for absorbers and filters [2,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. The carbon nonwoven mats exhibit hierarchical porosity, with mesh sizes of the nonwoven in the range of micrometers, fiber diameters of the order of hundreds of nanometers, and a porous fiber surface on the sub and single digit nanometer scale [13,26].…”

On‐Chip Direct Laser Writing of PAN‐Based Carbon Supercapacitor Electrodes

“…[13] We and others have previously reported on laser-induced carbonization of PAN-based carbon-fibers and other carbonprecursors. [14][15][16][17][18] Conventional carbonization of PAN is performed in convection ovens at temperatures >1000 °C. [19,20] By contrast, laser-induced carbonization is beneficial, as heat is locally produced in the focus of the laser, preventing exposure to high temperatures in undesired areas.…”