Abstract
Due to their electrical and mechanical properties, carbon nanofibers are of large interest for diverse applications, from batteries to solar cells to filters. They can be produced by electrospinning polyacrylonitrile (PAN), stabilizing the gained nanofiber mats, and afterwards, carbonizing them in inert gas. The electrospun base material and the stabilization process are crucial for the results of the carbonization process, defining the whole fiber morphology. While blending PAN with gelatin to gain highly porous nanofibers has been reported a few times in the literature, no attempts have been made yet to stabilize and carbonize these fibers. This paper reports on the first tests of stabilizing PAN/gelatin nanofibers, depicting the impact of different stabilization temperatures and heating rates on the chemical properties as well as the morphologies of the resulting nanofiber mats. Similar to stabilization of pure PAN, a stabilization temperature of 280°C seems suitable, while the heating rate does not significantly influence the chemical properties. Compared to stabilization of pure PAN nanofiber mats, approximately doubled heating rates can be used for PAN/gelatin blends without creating undesired conglutinations, making this base material more suitable for industrial processes.
Highlights
Functional nanofibers are used in a broad variety of applications, from nanofibrous membranes for filters [1] to substrates in tissue engineering [2, 3] to electrocatalysis [4], capacitors [5], and other applications based on the conductivity of the nanofibers [6]
We report on the influence of the stabilization temperatures and heating rates on the chemical properties and morphologies of the resulting nanofiber mats
Compared to a previous study on pure PAN nanofiber mats, the normalized masses here are generally smaller, and the mass loss is strongly increased for higher temperatures
Summary
Functional nanofibers are used in a broad variety of applications, from nanofibrous membranes for filters [1] to substrates in tissue engineering [2, 3] to electrocatalysis [4], capacitors [5], and other applications based on the conductivity of the nanofibers [6]. For batteries and other energy applications, often carbon nanofibers are used [7,8,9,10,11]. Such carbon nanofibers are often prepared via the electrospinning route, followed by stabilization and afterwards carbonization. Both steps influence the morphologies, the mechanical and electrical properties of the final carbon nanofibers significantly. While carbon nanofibers can be produced from a broad variety of materials [12,13,14], one of the most common materials for this purpose is polyacrylonitrile (PAN). PAN changes fiber diameters and mat morphologies significantly for varying spinning and solution parameters [15, 16], while the fibers themselves keep their flat, even surfaces
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