The Chemical Structure of Carbon Nanothreads Analyzed by Advanced Solid-State NMR

Carbon nanothreads are a new type of one-dimensional sp3-carbon nanomaterial formed by slow compression and decompression of benzene. We report characterization of the chemical structure of 13C-enriched nanothreads by advanced quantitative, selective, and two-dimensional solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments complemented by infrared (IR) spectroscopy. The width of the NMR spectral peaks suggests that the nanothread reaction products are much more organized than amorphous carbon. In addition, there is no evidence from NMR of a second phase such as amorphous mixed sp2/sp3-carbon. Spectral editing reveals that almost all carbon atoms are bonded to one hydrogen atom, unlike in amorphous carbon but as is expected for enumerated nanothread structures. Characterization of the local bonding structure confirms the presence of pure fully saturated “degree-6” carbon nanothreads previously deduced on the basis of crystal packing considerations from diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. ...