Metallized Nonwoven Electrospun Polyamide-6 Nanofibers for Energy Production and Storage

Nonwoven polymer materials based on polyamide-6 coated with stainless steel that are used as electrodes to produce energy and batteries to store it were investigated. Nanofibers were prepared by capillary-free electrospinning. The metal coating was applied using vacuum magnetron sputtering. Continuous metallized nonwoven material coated with sputtered stainless steel was formed after 4-10 min of magnetron sputtering. The resistance of the metallized nonwoven material was seven orders of magnitude less than that of uncoated material and five orders less than that of heat-treated nonwoven material. It was found that vacuum sputtering of the conducting stainless-steel coating reduced the nanofiber diameter by an average of 1.5 times due to evaporation of residual solvent.