Nanocarbon Materials and Their Physicochemical Properties

Nanocarbon materials encompass a diverse family of carbonaceous structures at the nanometre scale, including graphene, fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, amorphous sp2 carbons and naturally occurring varieties such as shungite and pyrobitumen. Their unique physicochemical properties arise from sp2 hybridisation, high surface areas, tunable porosity and exceptional electron delocalisation. Mechanically, these materials exhibit outstanding tensile strength and flexibility; electrically, they range from semiconducting to metallic conductivities; thermally, they can conduct heat efficiently or act as thermal insulators when disordered. Surface functionalisation and heteroatom doping further modulate their chemical reactivity, adsorption capacity and catalytic performance. These attributes underpin applications in energy storage, electronics, composites, catalysis, environmental remediation and biomedicine. Recent research has elucidated the multilevel organisation of nanocarbons, from basic structural units to macroscopic assemblies, revealing the interplay between domain size, defect density and chemical composition. The global drive towards sustainable and high-performance materials has positioned nanocarbons at the interface of fundamental science and technology translation.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent work has demonstrated the value of naturally derived graphene platelets extracted from shungite for the fabrication of conducting polymer nanocomposites. A low-oxidation extraction protocol yields high-conductivity graphene platelets which, when introduced into soft-template electropolymerisation of polypyrrole, act as nucleation sites for uniform polymer growth. Structural analyses reveal strong interfacial interactions between the graphene surface and polymer chains, while electrochemical measurements show synergistic improvements in both electron and ion transport. The resulting composites achieve specific capacitances exceeding 200 F g–1 under rapid charging conditions, highlighting their promise for multifunctional energy-storage and charge-transport systems.

Nanocarbon Materials and Their Physicochemical Properties publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in nanocarbon materials and their physicochemical properties across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

sp2 hybridisation: electronic configuration of carbon atoms forming three in-plane sigma bonds and one out-of-plane pi bond.

Graphene domain: a contiguous region of sp2-bonded carbon atoms arranged in a two-dimensional lattice.

Basic structural unit (BSU): a necklaced graphene molecule acting as the fundamental building block of multilevel amorphous carbon structures.

Raman D and G bands: characteristic vibrational features indicating structural disorder (D band) and graphitic order (G band) in carbon materials.

Electropolymerisation: an electrochemical process by which monomer units form a conducting polymer on an electrode surface.

References

1. A Neoteric View of sp2 Amorphous Carbon. Nanomaterials (2023).
2. Unveiling the nanostructured nature of pyrobitumen and shungite carbons through Raman, X-ray and theoretical analyses. Carbon Trends (2024).
3. Graphene platelets from shungite rock modulate electropolymerization and charge storage mechanisms of soft-template synthetized polypyrrole-based nanocomposites. Scientific Reports (2018).
4. Virtual Vibrational Spectrometry of Stable Radicals—Necklaced Graphene Molecules. Nanomaterials (2022).