Design and 3D printing of polyacrylonitrile-derived nanostructured carbon architectures

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.