Effect of high temperature treatment on electrochemical properties of carbon nanofiber membrane

Abstract

In this study, polyacrylonitrile was used as the nanofiber membrane material. Through A two-stage continuous process, namely, oxidation process and carbonization and activation process, an activated nanofiber membrane material was fabricated. Subsequently, the membrane underwent high-temperature heat treatment (1100-1500 °C) to explore the effect of temperature on its properties. Charge/discharge rate was employed to determine the capacitance retention ratio to evaluate the applicability of the fabricated membrane in high-power super capacitor electrodes. The results revealed that in the treated membrane, the lattice size increased from 1.24 nm to between 3.20 and 4.72 nm. In addition, the volume resistivity was reduced from 6 Ω-cm to between 9.70E-2 and 3.85E-2 Ω-cm, substantially improving the electric conductivity. The activated carbon nanofiber membrane treated with high temperature at 1100 °C exhibited the highest capacitance of 704 F/g at a scan rate of 5 mV/s.