Fig. 6: Proposed mechanism for graphitisation by high-temperature pulsing.
From: Catalysis-free transformation of non-graphitising carbons into highly crystalline graphite
a After a given pulse, the structure contains regions of hexagonal bonding separated by linear chains of pentagons, heptagons and octagons. b Between pulses, atmospheric oxygen is adsorbed within the structure. c During the subsequent pulse, trapped oxygen preferentially etches the linear chains marked as “combustion lines”. The atomistic model is from refs. 32,43. d Oxygen content determined from XPS of samples of PVDC after different number of pulses. Full O1s and C1s spectra can be found in Supplementary Fig. 4. e Maze-like model of a non-graphitising carbon based on diagrams from ref. 12.
