Effects of functional group modification on the thermal properties of nano-carbon clusters

Abstract

In this paper, the thermal properties including thermal stability, thermal decomposition activation energy and the thermal enthalpy of nano-carbon clusters (NCCs, including fullerene[60](C60, with a diameter of 0.71 nm), multi-walled carbon nanotubes(MWCNTs, with a diameter of 10–30 nm and a length of 1–2 µm), single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs, with a diameter of ~2 nm and a length of 5–15 µm), ligands of NCC-based terpyridine (NCC-tpy), and NCC-based ruthenium complexes (NCC-tpyRuCl3) were systematically studied by method of simultaneous thermogravimetric and differential thermal analysis. The results show that the modification of NCCs with terpyridine leads to a decrease in the thermal stability and in the thermal decomposition activation energy (the thermal decomposition activation energy decreased from 174.4 for C60, 144.9 for MWCNTs and 161.2 kJ/mol for SWCNTs to 166.2 for C60-tpy, 119.7 for MWCNT-tpy and 85.0 kJ/mol for SWCNT-tpy). But the modification of NCCs with terpyridine results in an increase in the enthalpy change of NCC thermal decomposition reaction. The introduction of the metal ions through complexation further decreases the thermal stability and the thermal decomposition activation energy of NCC-tpyRuCl3 due to the catalytic oxidation of Ru(III) ions (the activation energy decreases to 124.1 for C60-tpyRuCl3, 106.4 for MWCNT-tpyRuCl3 and 41.2 kJ/mol for SWCNT-tpyRuCl3). The introduction of the metal ions also leads to a decrease in the enthalpy change of the thermal decomposition reaction.