Formation of hollow carbon nanoshells from thiol stabilised silver nanoparticles via heat treatment

Watts, Julie A.; Fay, Mike W.; Rance, Graham A.; Brown, Paul D.; Khlobystov, Andrei N.

doi:10.1016/j.carbon.2018.06.074

Formation of hollow carbon nanoshells from thiol stabilised silver nanoparticles via heat treatment

Watts, Julie A.; Fay, Mike W.; Rance, Graham A.; Brown, Paul D.; Khlobystov, Andrei N.

Authors

Julie A. Watts

Dr Michael Fay MICHAEL.FAY@NOTTINGHAM.AC.UK
SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW

Dr GRAHAM RANCE Graham.Rance@nottingham.ac.uk
SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW

Professor PAUL BROWN PAUL.BROWN@NOTTINGHAM.AC.UK
PROFESSOR OF MATERIALS CHARACTERISATION

Professor Andrei Khlobystov ANDREI.KHLOBYSTOV@NOTTINGHAM.AC.UK
PROFESSOR OF CHEMICAL NANOSCIENCE

Abstract

Uniform, less 10 nm sized, hollow carbon nano-shells (HCNS) have been prepared via a single-step, thermal treatment of alkanethiol stabilised Ag nanoparticles (TS-AgNP). Direct evidence for the formation of spherical HCNS from TS-AgNP is provided by in situ MEMS heating on Si3N4 supports within a TEM, and ex situ thermal processing of TS-AgNP on carbon nanotube supports. A mechanism is proposed for the thermally driven, templated formation of HCNS from the TS-AgNP stabilising layer, with Ag catalysing the graphitisation of carbon in advance of thermally induced AgNP template removal. This facile processing route provides for excellent size control of the HCNS product via appropriate AgNP template selection. However, a rapid rate of heating was found to be crucial for the formation of well-defined HCNS, whilst a slow heating rate gave a much more disrupted product, comprising predominantly lacy carbon with decreased levels of graphitic ordering, reflecting a competition between the thermal transformation of the TS-layer and the rate of removal of the AgNP template.

Citation

Watts, J. A., Fay, M. W., Rance, G. A., Brown, P. D., & Khlobystov, A. N. (2018). Formation of hollow carbon nanoshells from thiol stabilised silver nanoparticles via heat treatment. Carbon, 139, 538-544. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carbon.2018.06.074

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jun 29, 2018
Online Publication Date	Jun 30, 2018
Publication Date	Nov 30, 2018
Deposit Date	Sep 5, 2018
Publicly Available Date	Jul 1, 2019
Journal	Carbon
Print ISSN	0008-6223
Publisher	Elsevier
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	139
Pages	538-544
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carbon.2018.06.074
Public URL	https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1061296
Publisher URL	https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0008622318306407?via%3Dihub
Contract Date	Sep 5, 2018