Mechanical and structural characterizations of PAN-derived hollow carbon nanofibers

Abstract

Two HCNFs with different hollowness and wall thicknesses were prepared to evaluate their mechanical properties. The effect of the microstructure on the tensile strength of HCNFs was investigated using a nanotensile test. The elastic modulus and tensile strength of the thinner HCNFs were about 15.9 and 0.5 GPa, whereas 60 and 1.2 GPa for the thicker HNCFs. The fracture surfaces observed by HR-TEM revealed that such low strength were caused by randomly oriented turbostratic carbon structures of the present HCNFs. Further research will be directed to orient the crystallites along the fiber axis and its results will be presented at the conference.