A Review of Assembled Polyacrylonitrile-Based Carbon Nanofiber Prepared Electrospinning Process

Abstract

Electrospinning is a very simple and versatile process by which polymer nanofibers with diameters ranging from a few nanometers to several micrometers can be produced using an electrostatically driven jet of polymer solution (or polymer melt). Significant progress has been made in this process throughout the last decade and the resultant nanostructures have been exploited to a wide range of applications. An important feature of the electrospinning process is that electrospinning nanofibers are produced in atmospheric air and at room temperature. This paper reviews the assembled polyacrylonitrile (PAN)-based carbon nanofibers with various processing parameters such as electrical potential, distance between capillary and collector drum, solution flow rate (dope extrusion rate), and concentration of polymer solution. The average fiber diameter would increase with increasing concentration of the polymer solution and the flow rate. Therefore, the screen distance could also increase but the average electrical potential of the fibers diameter decreases. Electrospinning process can be conducted at higher electrical potentials, lower flow rate, nearer screen distance, and higher concentrations of dope.

Scaling analysis for electrospinning

“…For viscosity, the predicted scaling coefficient is close to the average scaling predicted from the experimental studies. For flow rate however, the average of the three scaling coefficients obtained from experimental studies is 0.325 (Liu et al 2007 ; Mataram et al 2011 ; Wang et al 2008 ), which is lower than 0.5. For △ V , L and K there are very few methodical studies (with experimental data) available in literature to compare the coefficient values.…”

“…While there are many studies which reported that d f increases with increasing flow rate, only few of them have shown systematic data which gives scaling coefficient between the two. Experimental data provided by Wang et al ( 2008 ), Liu et al ( 2007 ) and Mataram et al ( 2011 ) was used to extract the scaling coefficient for Q as 0.3, 0.34 and 0.35 respectively.…”

“…The relation between applied voltage △ V and fiber diameter is ambiguous. Even though majority of the studies have found that the fiber diameter decreases with increasing voltage (Homayoni et al 2009 ; Liu et al 2007 ; Mataram et al 2011 ; Mazoochi and Jabbari 2011 ; Sajeev et al 2008 ; Thompson et al 2007 ; Wang et al 2009 ; Yuan et al 2004 ; Zhang et al 2005 ), there are some experimental studies which have observed an inverse relation (Jeun et al 2007 ; Rojas et al 2009 ). There are some other studies which have reported a dual effect of applied voltage, in which either the fiber diameter first decreases with increasing voltage up to a threshold value and then increases with further increase in voltage (Supaphol and Chuangchote 2008 ; Wannatong et al 2004 ) or vice-versa (Singh et al 2009 ).…”

Activated Carbon Nanofiber Nonwovens: Improving Strength and Surface Area by Tuning Fabrication Procedure

“…Fundamental changes in both chemical composition and physical properties occur during each of these fabrication steps. For instance, stabilization, which occurs in an oxidizing atmosphere at temperatures of 180–300 °C, causes a number of chemical reactions including cyclization, dehydrogenation, aromatization, oxidation, and cross-linking formation among linear polymer chains. − These various reactions can result in mechanical weakening of the fiber . During the early stages of carbonization, intermolecular dehydrogenation and cross-linking reactions occur in the oxidized PAN.…”

Concept of minimum electrospinning voltage (MEV) in electrospinning of PAN–DMF system: effect of distance

“…The process due to its simplicity has been explored for spinning fibers from a large number of polymers (Mataram, Ismail, Abdullah, Ng, & Matsuura, 2011). In the last decade, significant progress has been made in this process and resultant nanostructures have been exploited for a wide range of applications (Huang, Zhang, Kotaki, & Ramakrishna, 2003).…”