Rapid joule-heating activation boosted capacitive performance of carbon fibers

作者：Zhao, Yixin; Liu, Hu; Li, Shulin; Chen, Pengqi; Jiang, Shudong; Liu, Jiehua; Meng, Fancheng^*

来源：COMPOSITES COMMUNICATIONS, 2022, 34: 101263.

DOI：10.1016/j.coco.2022.101263

• Joule -heating
• Activation
• Carbon fiber
• Capacitance

The traditional activation methods for carbon fibers (CFs) such as strong acid etching are corrosive, time consuming and heavily polluting. In this paper, we report a fast and environment-friendly method to activate CF by a one-step joule-heating process. With only 10 min treatment, the oxygen content in the fiber surface reaches to 24.6%, and the activated CF with hierarchically porous structure and exfoliated surface layers is obtained. As a fiber electrode, it reveals a specific capacitance of 162 F g-1, which is 125 times of the non-activated CF. Furthermore, the joule-heating activation also facilitates the growth of foreign component on fiber surface and strengthens their interfacial interaction. This work provides a novel approach for the rapid fabrication and functionalization of CF-based devices and composites.