Design and preparation of continuous titanium carbide fibers via simple precursor route

Abstract Titanium carbide (TiC) fibers are attractive functional materials that find application in the areas of energy, environment, and biology. Herein, a simple precursor route is designed to prepare TiC fibers by means of electrospinning. The precursor is prepared by adding polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) to as-synthesized polytitanoxane (PTO), and the synthesis process, structure, and thermal behavior of the resulting TiC fibers are analyzed. Smooth and continuous precursor fibers with a uniform diameter of ~1.22 μm are obtained after the electrospinning of the precursor. With increase in the preparation temperature, the phase composition of the fibers evolves into TiC from TiCxOy via pyrolysis and carbothermal reduction. Chemical-state analysis results show that the surface of as-prepared TiC fibers exhibits very weak oxidation, thus leading to TiO2 and TiCxOy formation. In addition, all the prepared fibers show uniform morphologies without adhesion. With the proposed approach, continuous TiC fibers with a diameter of ~0.55 μm can be obtained.