Aligned carbon and graphite fibers prepared from poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) single crystals synthesized by solid-state polymerization and their supercapacitor performance

Abstract

Aligned carbon and graphite fibers with high crystallinity are prepared from doped and dedoped poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) fibers synthesized through solid-state polymerization. X-ray diffraction and Raman scattering analyses show that the graphite fibers produced from doped solid-state polymerized PEDOT (SSP-PEDOT) are more crystalline than the fibers produced from the dedoped polymer. Scanning electron microscopy indicates that the graphite fibers have plate and layer morphologies in the through and edge directions, respectively. The graphene layers tend to align parallel to the graphite fibers along both the long axis and the surface of the aggregates of fine acicular graphite crystals with a remarkable orientation factor of 0.85. The electrical conductivity of the graphite fibers is on the order of 10² S cm⁻¹ along the fiber axis. Furthermore, carbon films produced from SSP-PEDOT treated at 800 °C showed good capacitance performance in a basic electrolyte, which indicates a new direction for the usage of SSP-PEDOT.