Effect of Carbonate Source on the Dehydrofluorination Process in Polyvinylidene Fluoride/Alkali Metal Carbonate Composites

In this paper, Raman and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopies were applied to analyze compositional and structural variations of the generated activated carbon (AC), as induced by changing carbonate source in three different types of systems, PVDF/M2CO3 (M = Li, Na, and K). According to the variations of I D/I G and sp2/sp3 ratios, a strong dependence of the AC structure on the type and content of the initial carbonate was found, determined by practical dehydrofluorination reactions associated with oxygen incorporation in AC and side reactions, because of the property variation induced by the difference in the cation of the carbonate sources. This procedure clarified the process of PVDF dehydrofluorination and the formation of activated carbon, which helps to optimize the material performance of the percolative composite for flexible energy storage applications.