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[[Vol. 43]New approach for the synthesis of carbon nanosheets_WPI-MANA.pdf](https://mdr.nims.go.jp/filesets/bd7a8a24-af7c-4d1f-b62d-cb33b9ef75fa/download)

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International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA)

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[[Research Highlights Vol.43] New approach for the synthesis of carbon nanosheets](https://mdr.nims.go.jp/datasets/c00057db-e04b-4bc9-8e9c-e130d6d6c6c3)

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2022/04/04 10:04 New approach for the synthesis of carbon nanosheets| MANAhttps://www.nims.go.jp/mana/research/highlights/vol43.html 1/2Previous  Index  NextResearch Highlights[Vol. 43]New approach for the synthesis of carbon nanosheets30 Sep, 2018Carbon nanosheets — thin materials consisting of only carbon — have many useful properties,including energy-storage and catalytic functionality. The large-scale production of carbonnanosheets, however, has been challenging.Figure: Synthesis of carbon nanosheets from CPPhen molecules.Now, Taizo Mori and Katsuhiko Ariga at WPI-MANA, NIMS, Tsukuba, Japan, and colleagues havediscovered a relatively simple method for the fabrication of large carbon nanosheets.The researchers started from a solution of specially designed organic molecules, CPPhen(cyclopenta phenanthrene) provided by Kenichiro Itami at the Nagoya University, in chloroform.CPPhen molecules have an ellipsoidal shape and consist of several hexagonal benzene rings —typical precursors for graphitic (i.e., layered carbon) networks. The solution was put dropwise ontoan air–water interface undergoing vortex flow (the type of motion observed when stirring a liquidin a glass). The centrifugal rotation helped to spread the CPPhen molecules uniformly on the air–water interface. After stopping stirring, the chloroform was left to evaporate, and the resultingself-assembled thin film was put on a substrate. The final step was to ‘carbonize’ the on-substratefilm by heating and exposure to nitrogen gas flow.Importantly, the produced film, having a thickness of about 10 nanometer, indeed showed uniformtwo-dimensional morphology. Mori and colleagues also noted that the sheets were highly porous —https://www.nims.go.jp/mana/research/highlights/vol42.htmlhttps://www.nims.go.jp/mana/research/highlights/index.htmlhttps://www.nims.go.jp/mana/research/highlights/vol44.html2022/04/04 10:04 New approach for the synthesis of carbon nanosheets| MANAhttps://www.nims.go.jp/mana/research/highlights/vol43.html 2/2pore sizes were about 20 to 30 nanometer.The researchers attribute the success of their approach to the role of the intermolecularinteractions between the CPPhen molecules; applying the same procedure to molecules containingelements of the CPPhen structure did not lead to the formation of planar carbon sheets.The scientists also explored the synthesis of nitrogen-doped carbon sheets with their carbonizationmethod. Mixing CPPhen with pyridine, a nitrogen-containing compound, before dripping it onto thevortex air–water interface, resulted in sheets with high nitrogen content — Mori and colleaguesassume the pyridine molecules were trapped within the CPPhen molecules or between them duringcarbonization. The electrical conductivity of the nitrogen-doped carbon sheets was significantlyhigher than that of the undoped ones, which is promising for applications. Indeed, the scientistsconclude that this “would allow the utilization of nitrogen-doped carbon nanosheets as highlyefficient catalysts for oxygen-reduction reactions for high-performance fuel cells.”Reference“Carbon Nanosheets by Morphology-Retained Carbonization of Two-Dimensional AssembledAnisotropic Carbon Nanoring”Taizo Mori, Hiroyuki Tanaka, Amit Dalui, Nobuhiko Mitoma, Kengo Suzuki, Mutsuyoshi Matsumoto,Nikhil Aggarwal, Archita Patnaik, Somobrata Acharya, Lok Kumar Shrestha, Hirotoshi Sakamoto,Kenichiro Itami, Katsuhiko ArigaJournal : Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 57, 9679-9683 (2018).DOI : 10.1002/anie.201803859AffiliationsInternational Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for MaterialsScience (NIMS), Namiki 1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, JapanContact informationInternational Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics(WPI-MANA)National Institute for Materials Science1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044 JapanPhone: +81-29-860-4710E-mail: mana-pr[AT]ml.nims.go.jphttps://samurai.nims.go.jp/profiles/mori_taizo?locale=enhttps://samurai.nims.go.jp/profiles/shrestha_lokkumar?locale=enhttps://samurai.nims.go.jp/profiles/ariga_katsuhiko?locale=enhttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/anie.201803859