Investigation of poly(phenylacetylene) derivatives for carbon precursor with high carbon yield and good solubility

Abstract This paper investigates a family of poly(phenylacetylene) derivatives with a p-electrons conjugated polymer backbone and side groups containing only sp2 and sp carbons. The objective is to identify the suitable carbon precursor that is processible and can be transformed to carbonaceous material with high carbon yield by a simple (one-step) thermal transformation process (without any external reagent). Poly(phenylacetylene) with para-substituted acetylene group poly(PA-A) shows an exceptionally high C-yield (~90%) in one-step heating from ambient temperature to 1000 °C under N2 atmosphere. Unfortunately, this poly(PA-A) polymer is quite sensitive to heat and light with very limited solubility. On the other hand, poly(phenylacetylene) with para-substituted phenylacetylene group, i.e. poly(PA-PA), offers a relatively high C-yield (~80%) and also good solubility in common organic solvents, such as toluene and tetrahydrofuran (THF). Several uniform dark-red poly(PA-PA) fibers with smooth surface and fiber diameter in the range of 3–6 μm were prepared from 30 wt% poly(PA-PA)/THF solution using electrospinning technique. The resulting precursor fibers were converted to the corresponding carbon structure in a one-step thermal heating process under N2 atmosphere. Both X-ray and Raman spectra show the polymorphous carbon morphology with the graphene crystalline domains.