The research team of Professor Yu Shuhong and Professor Liang Haiwei of USTC has made important progress in the study of transition metal assisted organic small molecule carbonization

Carbon nanomaterials are widely used in the fields of environment, energy, catalysis, electronic devices and polymers because of their high conductivity, excellent chemical stability, unique microstructure and other physical properties In particular, carbon nanomaterials with high specific surface area, porous structure, ideal heteroatom doping and other characteristics will have more competitive applications It is difficult to control the microstructure and heteroatom doping of the carbon materials by traditional natural products (such as cellulose and starch) with low vapor pressure At the same time, the preparation process of carbon nanomaterials using synthetic polymers as precursors is complex and slow, and it is not easy to scale production Therefore, the development of simple, cheap and controllable methods for the preparation of carbon nanomaterials is still facing great challenges Recently, the research team of Professor Yu Shuhong and Professor Liang Haiwei of University of science and technology of China has developed a new way of synthesis of organic small molecule carbonization catalyzed by transition metal salts, which has realized the controllable macro synthesis of porous doped carbon nanomaterials at the molecular level This research achievement is entitled "transition metal assisted carbonization of small organic molecular toward functional carbon materials" and published in science advances 2018 (4, eaat0788) published on July 27 The first author of this paper is post doctoral Wu Zhenyu and master student Xu Shilong Because of its wide existence, variety and abundant elements, organic small molecules are ideal precursors for the preparation of carbon nanomaterials However, the high volatility of small organic molecules at high temperature makes it necessary to use complex methods and equipment, such as chemical vapor deposition and high-pressure closed synthesis, to prepare carbon nanomaterials So far, there is no simple and effective way to carbonize organic small molecules to prepare carbon nanomaterials In response to the above challenges, the researchers proposed a transition metal assisted carbonization method to prepare carbon nanomaterials by using transition metal salt assisted pyrolysis of organic small molecules In the process of high-temperature pyrolysis, transition metal salts can not only improve the thermal stability of small molecules, but also catalyze their polymerization to form the corresponding polymer intermediates preferentially, so as to avoid the volatilization of small organic molecules in high-temperature pyrolysis and ultimately form carbon nanomaterials They found that at least 15 kinds of organic small molecules and 9 kinds of transition metal salts can be used as carbon precursor and catalyst to prepare corresponding carbon based nanomaterials, and a variety of hard templates can be used in this method to improve the specific surface area and porosity of the materials The results show that this method is a general, simple and efficient synthesis method of carbon nanomaterials The precursor structure of organic small molecules (source: Science Advanced) carbon materials prepared by this method have three kinds of microstructure: bamboo like multi walled nanotubes, micro scale sheets and irregular particles The specific surface area and pore volume of these carbon nanomaterials are up to 1202m 2 g-1 and 2.16cm3g-1, and they are rich in heteroatoms, such as 13.35% of sulfur, 6.44% of nitrogen and high graphitization The porous carbon nanomaterials prepared by this method have excellent catalytic performance in selective ethylbenzene oxidation, nitrobenzene hydrogenation, hydrogen evolution reaction and oxygen reduction reaction, and are ideal heterogeneous catalysts and electrocatalysts This study provides a general route for the efficient preparation of carbon nanomaterials, and has guiding significance for the development of carbon nanomaterials with ideal structure and composition in the future This work has been supported by the innovation research group of NSFC, NSFC key fund, national major scientific research plan, key research project of cutting edge science of Chinese Academy of Sciences, nanoscience excellence and innovation center of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou nanotechnology Association innovation center, excellent user fund of Hefei University Science Center, youth thousand talents plan of Central Organization Department, and Bo Funding for new projects, etc.