Synthesis Of Nano Onion-Like Fullerenes Under Plasma Conditions

As a member of the fullerene family, nano onion-like fullerenes (NOLFs) are expected to have extensive promising application in high-performance wearable materials, superconductive materials, communicational materials, biomedical materials and so on because of their unique molecular structure. Obviously, the exploitation of property and application of nano onion-like fullerenes are based on their synthesis with large quantities at low costs. However, there are a lot of problems in their preparation (e.g. high energy consumption, high cost, low yield and so on), which make the study of nano onion-like fullerenes develop slowly in structure and property characterization, modification, function and application.In this paper, radio frequency or microwave plasma, which operates at low temperatures and low energy consumption, was used for synthesizing nano onion-like fullerenes from coal or carbon black by optimizing preparation parameters. The morphologies and structures of the products were characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques. The results revealed that a large amount of Fe₃C-encapsulating NOLFs, with shells being uniform in thickness (about 4nm), were prepared with plasma treatment for 30min, and Fe in coal sample...