Chinese scientists successfully developed a new type of carbon material
Addtime：
2022-08-25
Recently, Zheng Jian's team, a researcher at the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, developed a new type of carbon allotrope single crystal - single-layer polymerization C60 through simple reaction conditions under atmospheric pressure.
Recently, Zheng Jian's team, a researcher at the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, developed a new type of carbon allotrope single crystal - single-layer polymerization C60 through simple reaction conditions under atmospheric pressure. This is a brand-new two-dimensional superstructure of clustering. The C60 cluster cages are covalently bonded to each other through C-C bonds on the plane to form a regular topological structure. This new type of carbon material has high crystallinity and good thermodynamic stability, which provides a new idea for the research of carbon materials. This achievement has attracted extensive attention from the international chemical and materials science circles.
Substances composed of the same element show different physical and chemical properties due to different atomic arrangements. The substance is called an allotrope. Graphite and diamond are all allotropes of carbon. But these materials exist in nature, and scientists have been searching for the possibility of "building" new materials from carbon atoms and "customizing" new carbon materials.
"For the preparation of pure carbon materials, carbon atoms were used as the basic unit to build." Zheng Jian said that he led the team to creatively replace carbon atoms with C60 molecules as the basic unit. Under the conditions of room temperature and pressure, the C60 molecules were polymerized by doping magnesium, and then the magnesium was removed by organic cation slices, and finally a single-layer polymerized C60 was obtained.
This is a brand-new clustered two-dimensional superstructure. The C60 cluster cages are covalently bonded to each other through C-C bonds in a plane to form a regular topological structure. "In order to obtain this stable structure, it took us 5 years." Zheng Jian said that there are a total of 60 carbon atoms in a C60 molecule. To obtain a stable structure, the carbon atoms in adjacent molecules must form stable connections. The research team tried many methods, prepared many samples, and took many detours. Finally, the research paid off: various characterization measurements showed that this new material was the target material that Zheng Jian's team wanted to obtain. The team pioneered a new method for preparing carbon materials.
At the same time, the measurement results also found that the new material is a typical semiconductor with good thermodynamic stability and still exists stably at about 326.85 ° C. Zheng Jian said: "This new carbon material has important application significance in nonlinear optics and functionalized electronic devices, and also has potential application prospects in superconductivity, quantum computing, spin transport, information and energy storage, catalysis and other fields." Next, the team will deeply study the properties of this new material to explore more application scenarios and greater application value.