Conductive composites, nanofiber synthesis, characterization and capacitive application

Conductive nanofiber (NF) composites are with great importance because they exhibit superior electrical, electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding effectiveness, energy storage, electronic and thermal properties compared to conventional conductive polymer composites. They have a very wide range of applications such as in technology, energy storage, electrocatalyst, organic electrochemistry, bioelectrochemistry, photoelectrochemistry, semiconductors, various sensors, various display systems, microwave imaging techniques, corrosion prevention, antistatic coatings, antistatic packaging materials, intelligent molecular electronics, artificial muscles and artificial neural, the creation of smart molecular electronics. Recently for electrochemical capacitor applications that also called as supercapacitor carbon or conducting polymers(CP) based materials were commonly investigated. Among these polymers polyaniline (PANI), polypyrrole (PPy), polythiophene (PTh) and the polyethylenedeoxithiophene (PEDOT) are the most widely studied. Electrospinning has been extensively explored as a simple and versatile method for drawing fibers from polymer that has suitable mechanical strength. In the past several decades, this technique has been successfully used to generate thin fibers from a broad range of polymers. Conductive composites are advanced multifunctional materials, preserving the performance and advantages of composites and plastics and they meet many types of requirements. On the other hand conducting NF composites can be prepared by addition of CP, metal oxide and carbon additive to the polymers such as polyacrylonitrile (PAN), polyamide (PA), polyurethane (PU) that can be used to obtain fibersOn the other hand, pyrite is a mineral that is investigated due to its photoactive properties. Furthermore, it is also a waste produced during industrial production of sulfuric acid and there is a need to remove these wastes under controlled conditions. Polyethylenedioxythiophene (PEDOT) polymer is reported to have a good feature to work with capacitive properties. In this study, the aim is to convert pyrite into a valuable product. To make a comparison, two different types of natural pyrite at certain size was used. For this purpose, P(AN-co-VAc)/FeS2 composites were synthesised by microemulsion method. In order to increase the conductivity, P(AN-co-VAc)/FeS2 composite was coated with PEDOT by chemical oxidative polymerization and P(AN-co-VAc)/FeS2/PEDOT composite was obtained. Then by using these P(AN-co-VAc)/FeS2 and P(AN-co-VAc)/FeS2/PEDOT composites, nanofibers (NFs) were prepared by electro-spinning method. After electrospining, the resultant P(AN-co-VAc)/FeS2 NF that have high surface area were coated with PEDOT to improve the conductivity for possible application in charge storage device such as supercapacitors and rechargeable batteries. The composites and NFs were characterized with ATR-FTIR, SEM, DSC, voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance methods (EIS). Thus, in this study by using natural products, new materials having conductive and charge storage properties were obtained.