(116c) Finetuning Hierarchical Carbon Microstructure Via High Temperature Material Synthesis Route

The fabrication of carbon composite nanofibers by electrospinning of a metal/polyacrylonitrile (AuNP/PAN) blend precursor is proposed. The fibers were spun on a rotating drum collector for a short duration and carbonized at 900 °C in an inert atmosphere. The in situ fabrication of a monolithic carbon structure consisting of carbon nanofibers on carbon microposts ensures good electrical connection, thereby reducing ohomic resistive mismatch. It was found that the conductivity can be simply tuned about an order of magnitude, compared to virgin carbon nanofibers, by the addition of metal nanoparticles (NPs). The conductivity was found to increase with the size of the nanoparticles, which engendered graphitic microregions in the pyrolyzed nanofibers. The effect of microfabrication/nanofabrication technique on the organization of graphitic planes in the electrospun composite nanofibers studied experimentally and computationally and a templating effect of NPs that causes enriched graphitization is proposed.