Preparations of PAN-based Activated Carbon Nanofiber Web Electrode by Electrostatic Spinning and Their Applications to EDLC

Poly(acrylonitrile)(PAN) solutions in dimethylformamide(DMF) were electrospun to prepare webs consisting of 400nm ultra-fine fibers. The webs were oxidatively stabilized, activated by steam and resulted to be activated carbon fibers(ACFs). The specific surface area was , which showed a trend of a decrease of the surface area with an increase in activation temperature, showing opposite behavior to the other ACFs. The activation energy of the stabilized fibers for the steam activation was determined as 29.2 kJ/mol to be relatively low indicating the easier activation than that of other carbonized fibers. The ACF webs were characterized by pore size and specific surface uea which would be related to the specific capacitance of the electrical double layer capacitor (EDLC). The specific capacitances measured were 27 F/g, 25 F/g, 22 F/g at the respective activation temperature of , showing similar trend with the specific surface area i.e., the higher activation temperature was, the lower specific capacitance resulted.