Nano-structural Understandings on Carbon Nanofibers Based on Primary Structural Units

Unique properties of carbon nanofibers (CNF) depends on its microstructure and bulk morphology, which are governed by catalysts, carbon sources and synthesis conditions in the catalytic growth of CNF. Hence, exact understanding of the structure of CNF is important to achieve best performance of the CNF in practical applications. In a previous work [1], the present authors have proposed that the platelet CNF is constructed by uniform close-packing of rod-shaped primary units of 2~3 nm wide and various length of 20~100 nm long. In this study, the present authors treated platelet and herringbone CNFs first thermally, then mechanically and chemically to follow the morphological and structural changes by TEM, XRD, and Raman spectroscopy, in order to investigate its exact nano-structure and the possibility of applications.