Magnetic Carbon Nanocomposites

A synergistic process for recycling polystyrene (PS)/Ni@NiO polymer nanocomposites (PNCs) and fabricating magnetic core@shell Ni@C nanoparticles is introduced. Different pyrolysis pathways of the PNCs have been suggested basing on the analysis of both gas and liquid pyrolysis products from gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). The pyrolysis pathway follows radical generation, recombination and hydrogenation of the PNCs, which generate more saturated structures. However, pure PS undergoes a radical generation and β-scission to form more unsaturated structures. The coke formed during the PS pyrolysis was used as a carbon resource to in-situ synthesize a graphite shell surrounding Ni nanoparticle surface. This Ni@C nanoparticle shows a significantly larger specific area (236.68 m²/g) as compared to bare Ni@NiO nanoparticles (119.62 m²/g) and can be stabilized in 1 M HCl for hours. A large saturated magnetization was also observed in the Ni@C nanoparticles. All these characters make it very useful in environmental remediation applications, with the advantages of higher absorbance capacity and easy magnetic separation process.^{[1, 2]}

References

1. Zhang, D.; Wei, S.; Kaila, C.; Su, X.; Wu, J.; Karki, A. B.; Young, D. P.; Guo, Z. Nanoscale 2010, 2, (6), 917-919.

2.  Schartl, W. Nanoscale 2010, 2, (6), 829-843.