The synthesis of titanium carbide-reinforced carbon nanofibers

Tailoring hard materials into nanoscale building blocks can greatly extend the applications of hard materials and, at the same time, also represents a significant challenge in the field of nanoscale science. This work reports a novel process for the preparation of carbon-based one-dimensional hard nanomaterials. The titanium carbide-carbon composite nanofibers with an average diameter of 90 nm are prepared by an electrospinning technique and a high temperature pyrolysis process. A composite solution containing polyacrylonitrile and titanium sources is first electrospun into the composite nanofibers, which are subsequently pyrolyzed to produce the desired products. The x-ray diffraction pattern and transmission electron microscopy results show that the main phase of the as-synthesized nanofibers is titanium carbide. The Raman analyses show that the composite nanofibers have low graphite clusters in comparison with the pure carbon nanofibers originating from the electrospun polyacrylonitrile nanofibers. The mechanical property tests demonstrate that the titanium carbide-carbon nanofiber membranes have four times higher tensile strength than the carbon nanofiber membranes, and the Young's modulus of the titanium carbide-carbon nanofiber membranes increases in direct proportion to the titanium quantity.