Morphology-property relationship in radially oriented anchored carbon nanotubes on polybenzimidazole nanofibers

Introducing carbon nanotubes (CNTs) capable of anchoring on nanofibers establishes new possibilities in many applications, such as lithium–sulfur batteries and laminated composites. Direct growth and attachment of CNTs eliminate dispersion challenges such as detachment or transfer of CNTs onto another medium and damage to CNTs, making them inadequate for practical applications. This study facilitated the direct growth of conductive CNTs on curved, high-temperature resistant polymeric polybenzimidazole (PBI) nanofiber surfaces via chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Control of CVD process parameters, including nucleation and growth times (10 or 15 min) and catalyst concentration (1 or 10 mM) at 600 °C resulted in the growth of radially oriented CNTs on PBI nanofiber surfaces and provided morphology-dominated behavior both on physical and electrical properties. Morphological analyses showed that optimizing catalyst concentration (10 mM) and CVD process parameters, including nucleation (15 min) and growth times (10 min and 15 min), yielded uniform CNT coverage and conformity. A systematic exploration of mesoscopic morphologies revealed a strong correlation between physical parameters such as CNT array lengths and electrical conductivity, up to 0.039 ± 0.004 S/cm. The proposed CNT growth method could offer in situ structural tunability to respond to application-related requirements from energy storage to the rate capability of lithium-based batteries. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]