Carbon Materials with Zigzag and Armchair Edges

Abstract

Carbon materials such as graphene and graphene nanoribbon with zigzag and armchair edges have attracted much attention because of various applications such as electronics, batteries, adsorbents, and catalyst supports. Preparation of carbon materials with different edge structures at a large scale is essential for the future of carbon materials, but it is generally difficult and expensive because of the necessity of organic synthesis on metal substrates. This work demonstrated a simple preparation method of carbon materials with zigzag and armchair edges with/without nonmetallic silica supports from aromatic compounds such as tetracene with zigzag edges and chrysene with armchair edges and also determined the edge structures in detail by three types of analyses such as (1) reactive molecular dynamic simulation with a reactive force field, (2) Raman and infrared (IR) spectra combined with calculation of spectra, and (3) reactivity analyzed by oxidative gasification using thermogravimetric analysis. Two different types of carbon materials with characteristic Raman and IR spectra could be prepared. These carbon materials with different edge structures also clearly showed different tendency in oxidative gasification. This work did not only show the simple preparation method of carbon materials with different edge structures, but also contributes to the development of detailed analyses for carbon materials.