Effect of Salt Variability on the Low-Temperature Metal-Catalyzed Graphitization of PAN/DMSO Solutions for the Synthesis of Nanostructured Graphitic Carbon

Abstract

Graphitic carbon plays a pivotal role in numerous technological applications, including energy storage, energy conversion, and different fields of material science. The transformation of amorphous carbon into graphitic carbon, a process known as graphitization, is important for optimizing the properties of carbon materials. In this study, we explore the catalytic graphitization of polyacrylonitrile (PANs) using various metal salts (LiNO3, Ca(NO3)2·4H2O, and Ni(NO3)2·6H2O). We prepared dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) solutions of PAN with different salt concentrations of 5, 10, and 15 wt.%. The different prepared metal salt-mixed PAN/DMSO solutions were dried at 45 °C and this was followed by carbonization processes at 950 °C, with a heating rate of 1 °C min−1 for 1 h under an N2 atmosphere. The resulting graphitic carbon was characterized to determine the influence of salt type and concentration on the degree of graphitization. Our findings provide valuable insights into PAN-derived graphitic carbon’s structural and compositional properties. This work underscores the influence of salt concentration in optimizing the graphitization process, offering a pathway to design facile and cost-effective graphitic carbon materials.