Fabrication of Carbon Nanofibers Decorated with Various Kinds of Metal Oxides for Battery Applications

Carbon nanofibers decorated with various metal oxide nanoparticles were fabricated by combining an electrospinning technique of bicomponent polymer mixture and a sol-gel reaction subsequent carbonization process. Electrospun consisting polyacrylonitrile (PAN) poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP) controllable diameters PAN/PVP core/shell types via phase-separation due to the immiscibility between two polymers. The electrospun served as supporting materials binding sites PVP incorporate titanium precursor. Subsequently, fibers led formation carbon nanofibers@TiO2 for energy application, in which rutile TiO2 on surface nanofiber. Especially, this nanofiber electrode exhibited excellent electrochemical property lithium-ion batteries (≈600 mA h g−1 at C/5 rate 100 cycles). Furthermore, also successfully modified other oxides, including NiO, SnO2, ZrO2 nanoparticles, similar manner.