Solution blown aligned carbon nanofiber yarn as supercapacitor electrode

Carbon materials with various microtextures and wide availabilities represent very attractive electrode materials for supercapacitors. In this paper, a modified solution blowing process, using a pair of parallel rods as collector, was reported to fabricate carbon nanofiber yarn (CNFY) with polyacrylonitrile (PAN) as precursor polymer. The morphology and structure of the nanofibers were investigated. The PAN precursor and carbon nanofibers were well-aligned and their average diameter was 280 nm and 187 nm, respectively. The performance of CNFY as supercapacitor electrode was evaluated. The CNFY possessed high conductivity of 608.7 Scm −1 and mass specific capacitance of 70 Fg −1 at the current density of 500 mAg −1 , and the reduction of capacitance is 29.14 % of the initial value at the current density range from 0.5 to 8 Ag −1 . The superior performance of the CNFY electrode was attributed to the well-aligned structure and high electrical conductivity which afforded the potential application as a novel electrode for supercapacitors.