LAUSR

This work aims to develop and characterize a new design of free-standing interconnected carbon nanofibers electrodes for supercapacitors application. The fibers are obtained via carbonization of three components electrospun nanofibers mats based on polyacrylonitrile polymer, as a carbon backbone precursor, polyvinyl alcohol, as a sacrificial copolymer, and 0-1.0 wt.% multi-walled carbon nanotubes. Carbonizing these ternary composites results in fibers with about 2 times larger in surface area and one order of magnitude higher in electrical conductivity than those obtained by the carbonization of neat polyacrylonitrile and binary polyacrylonitrile-0-1.0 wt.% carbon nanotubes mats. Carbonized polyacrylonitrile-polyvinylalcohol-0.3 wt.% carbon nanotubes mat reveals the highest surface area and electrical conductivity and best capacitive performance. It exhibits energy and power densities of 27.8 Wh kg-1 and 110.59 kW kg-1, respective1y, and cyclic stability of 95% after 2000 charge-discharge cycles at charging current of 1.0 Ag-1. The nanotubes alignment along fibers axis, formation fiber-fiber interconnected morphology with more mesopores pollutions and changes in graphitization degree and defects features of fibers crystallites are the reasons for the observed increase in electrical conductivity, surface area and capacitive performance of the carbon fibers. Therefore, the new design represents a potential free-standing carbon nanofibers electrode for future EDLC devices fabrication.