POLYMERS & BIOPOLYMERS Electrospun cyclodextrin nanofibers as precursor for carbon nanofibers Bhushan Patil 1, *, Zehra Irem Yildiz 1 , and Tamer Uyar 1,2, * 1 Institute of Materials Science and Nanotechnology, Bilkent University, Ankara 06800, Turkey 2 Department of Fiber Science and Apparel Design, College of Human Ecology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA Received: 15 September 2019 Accepted: 17 January 2020 Published online: 27 January 2020 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020 ABSTRACT The carbon nanofibers (CNF) based on the electrospun polymer-free hydrox- ypropyl-b-cyclodextrin (HPbCD) nanofibers were obtained by the combination of chemical and thermal (pyrolysis) treatment. The thermal and chemical decomposition of HPbCD makes it challenging to obtain persistent CNF from HPbCD nanofibers. The chemical treatment of HPbCD nanofibers by using 0.6 mM H 2 SO 4 partially dissolves nanofibers and resulted in fused CNF while direct pyrolysis of HPbCD nanofibers totally ruins the nanofiber structure and produces char. The partial chemical treatment of HPbCD nanofibers with 10 lM H 2 SO 4 dehydrates the top layer of the nanofibers, and a shield-like structure is formed which helps to retain the fibrous morphology during the pyrolysis. The diameter of HPbCD nanofibers was reduced after carbonization process where CNF having average diameter of 380 ± 150 nm were obtained. The presence of typical D and G Raman bands and XRD peak at 2h * 26° further validates CNF formation from HPbCD nanofibers. The oxygen content is decreased from 34.7 to 5.8%, and carbon content increased from 62.3% to 94.2% after transformation of HPbCD nanofibers into CNF. To the best of our knowledge, for the first time, this study reports the use of electrospun polymer-free HPbCD nanofibers as a precursor to produce CNF. Introduction Carbon is of an interesting element due to its trans- formable properties by controlling the allotropes such as graphite, fullerenes, graphene, carbon nanotube, and diamond [1]. The carbon materials exist in vari- ous dimensions such as zero-dimensional (i.e., quantum dots), one-dimensional (i.e., carbon nan- otubes, carbon fibers), and two-dimensional (i.e., graphene) [2] having different conductivity [3, 4], optical properties [5], thermal properties [6], and mechanical properties [7]. Nanostructure forms of carbon have numerous applications in the energy [8, 9], sensors [10], biomedical [11], aeronautics [12], electronics [3], and environmental [13] fields. Among the different structural form of carbon, carbon fibers (CF) and carbon nanofibers (CNF) are quite attractive due to their easy fabrication and controllable Address correspondence to E-mail: bhushanpatil25@gmail.com; tu46@cornell.edu https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-020-04374-3 J Mater Sci (2020) 55:5655–5666 Polymers & biopolymers