Carbon materials have been awakening scientific interest for research because it allows chemical functionalization for multiple applications in the sciences, especially in energy applications. Carbon Nano-onions (CNO) are spherical structures composed of multilayers of fullerenes, these layers are connected in a way that show a shape of an onion. Its development begins with the use of nano-diamonds, a carbon material of strong structure which it forms in a very violent environment. The nano-diamonds are taken to a furnace at a temperature of 1650°C to finally obtain the CNO. The interesting properties about Janus nanoparticles are that they have different sizes and shapes which have now been able to be studied in more detail. The modifications on the surface of these nanoparticles can provide different chemical and physical properties. The purpose of this project is to use asymmetrically modified CNO as a support for metal nanoparticles to avoid agglomeration and, thus, increase their surface area and efficiency. Janus nanoparticles will be designed by a wax-paraffin pickering emulsion process using CNO on its surface. The deposition of platinum will be carrying out by two process, chemically reducing platinum with sodium borohydride and by an electrochemical process, Rotaring Disk Electrode. The characterization from Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) bring an average of size of wax-CNO particles from 50µm to 350µm. The preliminary characterizations of X-ray Diffraction and Raman Spectroscopy provided the composition of the particles. The X-ray diffraction results of the emulsions are very a like the paraffin diffractogram. The difference of the paraffin and emulsions diffractograms are that the peaks of the emulsions are wider than the peaks of the paraffin. This could mean that the particle size of the emulsions is smaller than the particles of the paraffin only. The Raman Spectroscopy characterization of the emulsions demonstrate the similar peaks of the paraffin Raman spectrum, this is because the paraffin is the majority contributor in the pickering emulsion process. Further characterization will be used as Dynamic Light Scattering and Atomic Force Microscopy, to measure the size of the particles and SEM to observe the distribution of metal nanoparticles in the CNO surface.

Synthesizing a novel Janus carbon nano-onions modified as a support for electrocatalytic nanoparticles

2019 Fall National Meeting

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