Kinetics of Intercalation of CuCl2 into Graphite

Graphite intercalation compounds with CuCl2 (CuCl2-GICs) were prepared at 380° by the vapor, mixing and molten salt methods. The intercalation process ineach method was followed by weight gain and X-ray powder pattern of the products obtained at each reaction time. The equilibrium stage structure in the CuCl2 -KCl molten salts with different compositions was determined.The intercalation of CuCl2 proceeded rapidly in the molten salt and by mixing method, though no intercalation was detected by vapor method. This result shows that the transportation step of CuCl2 vapor is excluded in the former two methods, but is rate-determining in the last one. The equilibrium stage structure was 2 in the molten salt, but 1 by mixing method, which was explained by the difference in chemical potential of intercalating species CuCl2. It also depended strongly on the composition of the system, that is, chemical potential of CuCl2. The transient state to the equilibrium was observed to be randomly mixed stages.