The continuous flexible three dimensional curly carbon-based hybrid nanofibers with good resilience and electrochemical performance

Abstract

Continuous flexible three dimensional curly carbon-based hybrid nanofibers are prepared via airspinning followed by heat treatment under different atmosphere. The as-prepared hybrid nanofibers are disordered and show fluffy structure, which endows the hybrid nanofibers with good elasticity after heat treatment. The effect of low temperature carbonization on the formation of different carbon-based hybrid nanofibers is investigated based on different heat treatment methods. Moreover, through the carbothermic reaction between TiO2 and amorphous carbon (or N2), inorganic nanoparticles which are homogeneously distributed in the nanofibers (or on the surface of the nanofibers) can be obtained. Meanwhile, a little graphene is formed around these inorganic compounds. In addition, the TiC, C0.7N0.3Ti and TiN hybrid nanofibers all present high discharge capacity and good cyclic stability. Compared with other TiN hybrid nanofibers reported before, our TiN hybrid nanofibers show higher discharge capacities of 251mAhg−1 at a current density of 0.1Ag−1 in the first cycle. Furthermore, the as-prepared TiN hybrid nanofibers possess good cyclic stability with the capacity retention about 91.8% after 100cycles. The good electrochemical performance and excellent flexibility promote TiN hybrid nanofibers to be a promising and alternative in many applications such as electronic devices.