Investigation of optimizing electrospun carbon nanofibers as an anode for Lithium ion batteries

The utilization of green energy, including solar and wind power, is believed to be one of the most promising alternatives to support more sustainable economic growth. In this regard, lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) can play a critically important role. To further increase the energy and power densities of LIBs, silicon anodes have been intensively explored due to their high capacity, low operation potential, environmental friendliness, and high abundance. Additionally, CNFs show excellent lithium- and sodium-storage performance when used directly as anode materials via template and activation strategies to produce numerous intercalation sites. nanofibers of Carbon with diameters that achieved into nanometer range have attracted growing attention in recent years due to their superior chemical, electrical, mechanical and also sacrificial properties in combination with their unique 1D nanostructures [1-2]. Unlike other synthesis methods, electrospinning polyacrylonitrile (PAN) followed by stabilization and carbonization has become convenient route to make carbon nanofibers [3]. Electrospinning utilizes electric forces and hence the electrical properties of the solution it’s a direct process to produce polymer fibre with high specific surface area ratio [4]. In addition, This method is a direct process that produces continuous fibers with nano-sized diameters and high specific surface area ratios Apart from polymer fiber producing; which the benefit of this process is the fiber can be produced straight away with lower cost than conventional melt spinning process. Recently, successful attempts have been made to produce polymer fiber by adjusting the parameters of electrospinning such as the collector distance, needle size, polymer concentration voltage applied [4-6]. In this study we’re willing to illustrate the effect of conductive additive, temperature, and solution concentration on optimizing the electrospinning process with polyacrylonitrile (PAN) to reduce diameter size, enhance mechanical properties, and 13th Annual Electrochemistry Seminar of Iran Materials and Energy Research Center (MERC), 22- 23 Nov, 2017 153 improve orientation (alignment) of the nano-fibers. Polyacrilonitrile (PAN) dissolved in dimethylformamide (DMF) was used as a precursor. Fiber diameters and orientation were measured through Scanning Electron Microscope analysis. Fibers with diameters of ~80-150 nm were successfully collected. For diameter analysis, voltage is found to be the most significant parameter in determining fiber diameter. Flow rate of syringe pump is the less-significant factor. The parameters were examined between voltage of 10-25kV, weight percentage PAN of 8-15wt%, and flow rate of 1-4ml/hr. and the temperature of precursor synthesis was 50-90 celsius. The fibers exhibited fine surfaces and were homogenous in terms of cylindricality. we were successful to find collaborations between the parameters with the required outputs.