Author(s): Pan, F (Pan, Fei); Ni, K (Ni, Kun); Xu, T (Xu, Tao); Chen, HC (Chen, Huaican); Wang, YS (Wang, Yusong); Gong, K (Gong, Ke); Liu, C (Liu, Cai); Li, X (Li, Xin); Lin, ML (Lin, Miao-Ling); Li, SY (Li, Shengyuan); Wang, X (Wang, Xia); Yan, WS (Yan, Wensheng); Yin, W (Yin, Wen); Tan, PH (Tan, Ping-Heng); Sun, LT (Sun, Litao); Yu, DP (Yu, Dapeng); Ruoff, RS (Ruoff, Rodney S. S.); Zhu, YW (Zhu, Yanwu)

Source: NATURE DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05532-0 Early Access Date: JAN 2023

Abstract: Carbon structures with covalent bonds connecting C-60 molecules have been reported(1-3), but their production methods typically result in very small amounts of sample, which restrict the detailed characterization and exploration necessary for potential applications. We report the gram-scale preparation of a new type of carbon, long-range ordered porous carbon (LOPC), from C-60 powder catalysed by alpha-Li3N at ambient pressure. LOPC consists of connected broken C-60 cages that maintain long-range periodicity, and has been characterized by X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, magic-angle spinning solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy and neutron scattering. Numerical simulations based on a neural network show that LOPC is a metastable structure produced during the transformation from fullerene-type to graphene-type carbons. At a lower temperature, shorter annealing time or by using less alpha-Li3N, a well-known polymerized C-60 crystal forms owing to the electron transfer from alpha-Li3N to C-60. The carbon K-edge near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure shows a higher degree of delocalization of electrons in LOPC than in C-60(s). The electrical conductivity is 1.17 x 10(-2) S cm(-1) at room temperature, and conduction at T < 30 K appears to result from a combination of metallic-like transport over short distances punctuated by carrier hopping. The preparation of LOPC enables the discovery of other crystalline carbons starting from C-60(s).

Accession Number: WOS:000913868600003

PubMed ID: 36631612

Author Identifiers:

Author        Web of Science ResearcherID        ORCID Number

LIU, Cai         D-1905-2011         0000-0001-5371-112X

Xu, Tao         N-2539-2013         0000-0001-5436-0077

Lin, Miao-Ling         T-7309-2017         0000-0001-5838-8237

Gong, Ke                  0000-0002-0845-5101

ISSN: 0028-0836

eISSN: 1476-4687

Full Text: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05532-0