A mild molecular fusion route for the synthesis of polyhedral carbon nano-onions with high graphitization

Siyu Xie; Jingyun Wang; Yongkai He; Hao Yan; Yu Wang; Yage Li; Sheng Wang; Xiaodan Sun; Youwei Yao; Qiang Cai

doi:10.1088/1361-6528/ac00de

A mild molecular fusion route for the synthesis of polyhedral carbon nano-onions with high graphitization

Nanotechnology. 2021 May 28;32(33). doi: 10.1088/1361-6528/ac00de.

Authors

Siyu Xie^{1

2}, Jingyun Wang^{1

2}, Yongkai He^{1

2

3}, Hao Yan⁴, Yu Wang^{1

2}, Yage Li^{1

2}, Sheng Wang^{1

2

3}, Xiaodan Sun^{1

2}, Youwei Yao³, Qiang Cai^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ State key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.
² Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials of Ministry of Education of China, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.
³ Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen 518055, People's Republic of China.
⁴ Harvard Medical School and Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, 50 Blossom Street, Boston, MA 02114, United States of America.

PMID: 33984853
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6528/ac00de

Abstract

Polyhedral carbon nano-onions (CNOs) compared with traditional quasi-spherical CNOs are more stable and have less defects, which will greatly broaden their potential applications. However, there still lacks of a suitable synthetic method. Here, we developed a simple molecular fusion route and templet growth method by which polyhedral CNOs can be successfully synthesized. Characterization of the polyhedral CNOs by transmission electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy indicates that they have an ultra-high degree of graphitization and a large cavity diameter of about 10 nm, which results in their low density of 1.42 g cm^-3. In addition, the deeper reaction mechanism of polyhedral CNOs growth was also elucidated. It was found that the channel structure and the absorption of the templet play the crucial role during the formation of polyhedral CNOs.

Keywords: large cavity diameter; molecular fusion route; polyhedral CNOs; templet growth; ultra-high graphitization.