Preparation of non-spherical hollow carbon nanocapsules from nickel nanoprecursors

Hollow carbon nanocapsules (NCs) are prepared from nickel nanoplate precursors through carburizing, decomposition, and leaching steps. The carburizing step was carried out by heating the nickel nanoplates in oleylamine at 250 °C for 4 h. Decomposition was then performed in a nitrogen atmosphere at 530 °C for 3 min. Characterization of the resulting product of the first two steps shows the intermediates to be Ni3C/Ni–C alloy and Ni/C core–shell nanostructures. Hollow carbon NCs are recovered from the products by leaching the Ni/C core–shell nanostructures in concentrated nitric acid. The NCs are found to have a high specific surface area (1081 m2 g−1) and a mesoporous structure (i.e., a pore volume of 2.81 cm3/g and a narrow pore size distribution of 2.9–3.4 nm). In addition, it is found that the hollow carbon NCs retained the same morphology as the original nickel precursors; demonstrating the robustness of the nickel templates and the ability of the carbon shells to maintain a non-spherical shape.

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