A Novel Method for the Fabrication of Monodispersed Carbon Nanospheres and Their Crosslinked Forms

Monodispersed carbon nanospheres (CNSs) were fabricated by a novel method and their structural properties were investigated. CNSs were prepared by the pyrolysis of nanospherical polystyrenes (PS). With the coating of SiO2 shell, PS particles were effectively separated during pyrolysis process which resulted to CNSs with an average diameter of 40 nm. Moreover, CNSs could be crosslinked with each other through the bondings between the functional groups on their surfaces. Morphology of the fabricated carbon spheres and their crosslinked form were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR).