Design and 3D Printing of Polyacrylonitrile‐Derived Nanostructured Carbon Architectures

Abstract

Nanostructured carbon materials with designer geometries are of great interest for a wide range of energy‐based and environmental applications due to their tunable microstructure, which allows for optimized properties and performance, as well as their ability to be shaped in complex three‐dimensional (3D) geometries suited for targeted applications. However, achieving a controllable way for preparing nanostructured carbon materials with precise macroscale control has proven to be challenging. Herein, a straightforward approach for 3D printing of nanostructured polyacrylonitrile (PAN)‐derived carbon materials controlled by employing self‐assembling resins in liquid crystal display printing is presented. The correlation between resin composition, printing parameters, and PAN thermal transformation conditions is identified using a combination of thermoanalytical and structural techniques. The nanostructured PAN materials are readily transformed into carbon with a voided microstructure while retaining the original macro‐architecture of the 3D printed polymer precursor objects. The resulting carbon materials are electrically conductive and feature nitrogen active sites controlled by pyrolysis temperature. This method offers a simple way to produce nanostructured carbon‐based materials with an arbitrary shape, presenting the possibility of advantageous characteristics for a range of potential applications in both the fields of energy and the environment.

Keywords

• 3D printing
• nanostructured materials
• polymerization‐induced microphase separation
• self‐assembly