Abstract: Carbon fiber electrodes were prepared by grafting anthraquinone molecules via a scalable electrochemical approach which simultaneously increased interfacial and electrochemical capacitance properties. In this work, anthraquinone diazonium salts were synthesized and grafted onto carbon fiber tows at various concentrations. These modified fibers were subsequently evaluated mechanically and electrochemically to analyze their suitability in structural supercapacitors. Compared to control fibers, the grafted anthraquinone groups resulted in a 30% increase in interfacial shear strength (IFSS) and 6.6× increase in specific capacitance. Industry application was also a focus thus carbon fibers were also modified with in-situ generated diazonium salts to determine the applicability to an in-line industrial process. Specifically, potentiostatic functionalization of fibers with in-situ generated diazonium salts AQ-1 and AQ-2, showed 3× and 4.3× increase in specific capacitance, respectively, relative to unmodified carbon fiber (CF). We expect that implementing a scalable method to introduce a conductive and electrochemically active covalently bound surface chemistry layer onto carbon fiber exhibits a higher specific capacitance than carbon fiber grafted with most other small molecules reported in literature. This will open new avenues for manufacturing multifunctional and high-performance fibers with tailored properties for specific/targeted applications.

Key words: Carbon fiber, Energy storage, Interface, Surface modification