Easy nickel substrate-assisted growth of uniform carbon microspheres and their spectroscopic properties

摘要

There is an immense interest in the fabrication of carbon materials, which stems from their unique structures, texture and properties. Especially, carbon spheres have attracted much attention due to their potential as lubricating materials, reinforcement materials for rubber, supports for catalysts, and the negative electrode in lithium secondary batteries. Some methods have been explored to prepare spherical carbons, such as CVD 1, hydrothermal 2, carbonization 3, pyrolysis 4, self-assembly template 5, carbonization of poly(furfuryl alcohol) 6. However, most of them were carried out at a higher temperature (usually not lower than 600 deg C) and/or with the need of catalysts or involving two-step procedure. Furthermore, the particle size could not be easily controlled owing to the encapsulation of catalyst into the products. Thus, simple methods for the synthesis of carbon spheres are especially welcome if they can produce samples with high purity and also high uniformity from inexpensive precursors. Herein, we report an easy substrate-assisted route where the carbonization of acetone at approx 550 deg C can be utilized to fabricate large quantities of uniform carbon microspheres with uniform sizes of the mean diameter of 5 mu m.