Journal article
Fabrication of porous carbon nanofibers with adjustable pore sizes as electrodes for supercapacitors
Journal of power sources, v 235, pp 289-296
01 Aug 2013
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
We report a facile method for obtaining extremely high surface area and uniformly porous carbon nanofibers for supercapacitors. Blends of polyacrylonitrile and sacrificial Nafion at different compositions have been electrospun into non-woven nanofiber mats with diameters in the range of 200-400 nm. Electrospun nanofiber mats are then subjected to carbonization to obtain porous carbon nanofibers (CNFs) as polyacrylonitrile converts to carbon and Nafion decomposes out creating intra-fiber pores. Resultant porous CNFs exhibit specific surface area of up to 1600 m(2) g(-1) with a large fraction of mesopores (2-4 nm). No additional chemical or physical activation process was used. We demonstrate the tunability of the pore sizes within CNFs by varying the amount of Nafion. The non-woven fiber mats of porous CNFs are studied as free-standing electrode materials for supercapacitors eliminating the need for polymeric binding agents. Electrochemical measurements showed large specific gravimetric and volumetric capacitances of up to 210 F g(-1) and 60 F cm(-3) in 1 M H2SO4 at a high cyclic voltammetry scan rate of 100 mV s(-1) due to the large fraction of mesopores. These materials retain 75% performance at a large current density of 20 A g(-1) indicating excellent power handling capability. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Metrics
Details
- Title
- Fabrication of porous carbon nanofibers with adjustable pore sizes as electrodes for supercapacitors
- Creators
- Chau Tran - Drexel UniversityVibha Kalra - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Journal of power sources, v 235, pp 289-296
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Number of pages
- 8
- Grant note
- 1150528; 1236466 / National Science Foundation; National Science Foundation (NSF)
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Chemical and Biological Engineering
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000318200300039
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-84875144915
- Other Identifier
- 991019167429404721
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Web of Science research areas
- Chemistry, Physical
- Electrochemistry
- Energy & Fuels
- Materials Science, Multidisciplinary