Gaseous detonation synthesis of Co@C nanoparticles/CNTs materials

Abstract

Co@C/CNTs magnetic carbon nanomaterials were fabricated by a gaseous detonation method with cobalt (III) acetylacetonate (Co(acac)3) as precursor and a mixture gas of hydrogen and oxygen as explosion source. The current work investigates how proportion of oxygen in the mixture gas affects the morphologies, phases, and degree of graphitization of Co@C/CNTs nanomaterials. The characterization of transmission electron microscopy indicates that the samples were consisted of core-shell nanoparticles and nanotubes, and the proportion of oxygen had little influence on the morphologies of the samples. X-ray diffraction and Raman spectra analysis demonstrate that the core-shell particles and nanotubes were Co@C and CNTs, respectively. The cobalt nanoparticles generated from the decomposition of Co(acac)3 would be oxidized to CoO when the proportion of oxygen was greater than 50% in the mixture gas. Though the degree of graphitization of Co@C/CNTs nanomaterials was little affected by the proportion of oxygen, the particle size of Co@C increased with the increase of the proportion of oxygen in the mixture gas, simultaneously, the carbon matrix was decreased.