Carbon nanofibers having excellent mechanical and chemical properties over commonly employed carbon fibers due to their unique small-size characteristics.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/267/3/032011/pdf

the above link will also useful to differentiate their characteristics nature

Dear all, nanofibers have much higher specific surface area with less defects over carbone fibers. My Regards

High aspect ratio (lenght:width) improve the overall properties and get some unique characteristics into the fibre.

Dear Abdullahi Abbas Adam;

carbon nanofibers (CNFs), has attracted growing attention, due to the comprehensive properties such as electrical conductivity, chemical resistance, thermal stability, ultra-high specific surface area as well as high stiffness.CNFs are more used in composite materials, supercapacitors, catalyst support, solar cells, sensors, thermoacoustics. These applications have been developed based on the functional features of CNFs, such as large surface area, high chemical, and thermal stability, high electrical conductivity, and relatively low density.for more details can see the following reference:

Article Strategies in Precursors and Post Treatments to Strengthen C...

Abdullahi Abbas Adam

Nanoparticles have a dimensional effect. They have new properties compared to bulky material. For CNFs , this is an increase in reactivity, adsorption, and the appearance of nonlinear optical properties. Synthesized new compounds that cannot be obtained from ordinary graphite.

Thank you all for your valuable contributions. Really appreciate.

Dear Dr. Abdullahi Abbas Adam,

carbon nanofiber is a kind of nanoscale carbon fiber. It is a quasi-one-dimensional carbon material between carbon nanotube and carbon fiber. It can be categorized into hollow carbon nanofiber and solid carbon nanofiber, according to its structural characteristics. Its diameter is generally in the range of 10 to 500 nm, and its length is in the range of 0.5 to 200 μm. Carbon nanofiber, which has a higher degree of crystalline orientation, is preferred for electrical and thermal conductivity. It not only possesses the same low density, high modulus, high strength, high conductivity, and thermal stability as carbon fiber fabricated with a chemical vapor deposition growth method, it also has advantages, such as the small number of defects, a large aspect ratio, a large surface area, and a compact structure.

For more details, please see the source:

Compositions of Self-Sensing Concrete

Baoguo Han, ... Jinping Ou

in Self-Sensing Concrete in Smart Structures (2014)

Best regards, Pierluigi Traverso

For nanofibers having diameters less than 80 nm, a number of spectacular properties generate. The conductivity (electrical & thermal) and elasticity enhances drastically. Many researchers prepare vertically aligned nanofiber assembly to enhance the effective surface area and reactivity for particular optoelectronic and catalytic applications. Moreover for diameters less than 25 nm, quantum confinement of phonons take place, which results Fano asymmetry in line-shapes of Raman modes, which is a very interesting thing itself. For most application-oriented research, nanoparticles, nanoflakes (2D), nanofibers/nanorods (1D) and quantum dots (0D) have already taken over the research-field compared to the micron order materials.

In the era of nano, carbon fibers are also not an exception. Although both carbon fibres and carbon nanofibers have their pros and cons, carbon material with 1-D nanostructure and its high specific surface area with tunable electrical conductivity, and good biocompatibility, has variety of applications like energy conversion, catalysis, sensors and biomedical applications, etc.

Hope this helps.

reducing the size of the object == > increasing the specific surface area ==> increasing the role and contribution of surface properties ==> reactivity, adhesion, adsorption, etc.

The use of carbon nanofiber as reinforcement improves the mechanical performance of the composite compare to carbon fiber due to their high surface area to volume ratio and also their small diameter which bridging the cracking propagation at the nanoscale. However, the optimization of the properties of the carbon nanofiber-composite will be achieved by a good dispersion of the fiber within the matrix to improve the cohesion between the fiber and matrix.

nanofibers are better than microfibers due to their ability to avoid fracture. The nanofibers do not create stress concentration and no crack initiation. Please be sure to mix the fibers well in the matrix otherwise there will be agglomeration. Agglomerates will create big clasters which will resemble micro-size bodies which will create crack initiation. See slide

Carbon nanofibers possess superior mechanical and chemical properties over commonly used carbon fibers owing to their unique small-size characteristics. Consequently, carbon nanofibers have aroused widespread interest in various fields such as catalysis, adsorption, structural reinforcement, nanodevices, etc.

The advantage is that the nanofibers are much more expensive and give more profit to the manufacturer.

Nanofibers in general have highly interesting properties, such as high surface area to volume area ratio, low fiber sizes and potential porous structures. For carbon nanofibers, there you will find similar properties with very few defects. With their fiber diameter being small, their properties differ from the bulk carbon fibers like increased adsorption, increase reactive sites and conductivity to name a few.