Amorphous carbons in view of multianalytical consideration: normal, expected, and new

TL;DR

This study uses a multianalytical approach to identify common structural and compositional features of various amorphous carbons, aiming to unify their representation.

Contribution

It introduces a combined analytical methodology applied to different amorphous carbons to reveal shared characteristics and improve their classification.

Findings

Identified steady common features across amorphous carbons

Demonstrated the effectiveness of multianalytical approach

Proposed a consolidated view of amorphous carbon structure

Abstract

The approach based on selected set of samples and selected set of analytical tools occurred quite efficient when applying to amorphous carbons thus leading to a transformation of the current representation of the issue based on particulars into that one based on a limited set of fixed commonalities. The approach first part implies a set of different origin solid samples. The second part concerns different analytical tools. The combining part means the application of each tool to the whole set of samples. In the current study two natural amorphous carbons shungite carbon and antraxolite, as well as two engineered products carbon blacks CB632 and CB624, all of the four belonging to the elitist highest-carbon-content species, were subjected to analytical study by using modern structural and compositional analytical techniques. The approach has allowed disclosing steady points that are common to the whole class of this carbon allotrope and that may lay the foundation of a consolidate representation of what are amorphous carbons.