Carbon Nanofiber can act as a supercapacitor, facilitating paper based electronics (film transistors, active matrix displays, sensors, and radio-frequency identification devices). To explore these applications, the first step was to synthesize CNF. This was done with the following steps:

1. Carbon fiber, HNO3, Water
2. Heat to reflux
3. 24 hours
4. Vacuum filtration

The product is shown in the gallery above.

To explore this further, we fabricated a supercapacitor using CNT, CNF, and manganese oxides. We then characterized their electrochemical properties in a three electrode system. A procedure modeled after a previous experiment was used (http://www.citeulike.org/article/8188780).

CNT (fabricated from previous experiments) was added to CNF. MnO2 was then electrochemically deposited onto the paper. It was calculated that 4.5 mg of MnO2 was deposited on to the paper and the specific capacitance of the paper was 410 F/g. Pictures of the experiment are shown below:

Owing to high capacitance, flexibility, robustness, low cost, and low environmental impact, MnO2/CNF-CNT paper supercapacitors can have great potential for diverse flexible energy storage applications.

An SEM has a higher resolution than normal microscopes, and images a sample with a high beam of electrons.

A comparison of the CNF and CNT images are shown below (the CNT is the smaller image on top).