Abstract
Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) is among the most common polymer materials in the world thanks to its versatility in a wide range of applications. Of importance to this work is its use in electrochemical cells. PAN has seen use as a separator material and as a binder material in lithium-ion cells. Expanding upon innovations made in recent decades for electrodepositing PAN onto conductive surfaces, this work details methods used to apply PAN as a thin coating to graphite composite electrodes; the resultant films may then be used for further electrochemical analysis in a lithium-ion cell. Graphite electrodes coated with electrodeposited PAN films were produced of a practical size for electrochemical testing in Swagelok cells; optical microscopy images of the resulting PAN coated graphite electrodes were also recorded to study the morphology of the coating.
Highlights
In 1982, Lecayon et al [1] published a pioneering report demonstrating the effective electrografting of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) onto metal surfaces
The report showed that metal surfaces can be coated with PAN films by using an electropolymerisation approach induced by the cathodic reduction of the polymer monomer
It was found that the PAN film coatings had very good adhesion to the metal electrode, which was ascribed to the formation of a chemical bond between the polymer and the metal surface, shown in Fig. 1 [2,3]
Summary
In 1982, Lecayon et al [1] published a pioneering report demonstrating the effective electrografting of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) onto metal surfaces. Lacey et al [4] and El-Enany et al [5] studied the electrodeposition of PAN onto glassy carbon and found that in the presence of oxygen the polymerisation started at less cathodic potentials. This was ascribed to the involvement of a superoxide species, formed as the product of the one electron reduction of oxygen, in. By performing electrochemical quartz crystal micro balance experiments, coupled with cyclic voltammetry measurements, they could identify that when the electrodeposition was made at mildly cathodic potentials, close to the onset of the electroreduction of the monomer, a polymer coating firmly anchored to the electrode was obtained. The cell is useful to investigate the electrodeposition of PAN on battery composite electrodes, which can have different types of applications like the construction of 3D batteries [8]
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