Scientific Papers in SCI

Despite the recent interest in catalytic graphitization to obtain graphite-like materials from hard-carbon sources, many aspects of its mechanism are still poorly unknown. We performed a series of in situ experiments to study phase transformations during graphitization of a hard-carbon precursor using an iron catalyst at temperatures up to 1100 degrees C and ex situ total scattering experiments up to 2000 degrees C to study the structural evolution of the resulting graphitized carbon. Our results show that upon heating and cooling, iron undergoes a series of reductions to form hematite, magnetite, and wustite before forming a carbide that later decomposes into metallic iron and additional graphite and that the graphitization fraction increases with increasing peak temperature. Structural development with temperature results in decreasing sheet curvature and increased stacking, along with a decrease in turbostratic disorder up to 1600 degrees C. Higher graphitization temperatures result in larger graphitic domains without further ordering of the graphene sheets. Our results have implications for the synthesis of novel biomass-derived carbon materials with enhanced crystallinity.

Iron gall ink was used in the Western world as a permanent writing material already in late Roman times and throughout the Middle Ages, until it became obsolete in the twentieth century. There is much interest in experimental methods to determine the state of the ink and its degradation products on historical documents. Mossbauer spectroscopy with Fe-57 is such a method, and it has the particular advantage to be sensitive to the chemical bonding of iron, but this method has only rarely been applied to historical documents. In this paper we present Mossbauer data for two damaged documents from a Library in Granada and a handwritten German book from the eighteenth century. In addition to the inked parts of the manuscripts, ink-free parts were studied to determine the amount and chemical state of the iron in the papers. These new results are discussed in the context of previously published Mossbauer data. In one of the investigated documents Fe(II)-oxalate, FeC2O4 center dot 2H(2)O, was observed. The assignment of the various Fe3+ sites in the different documents is rather difficult and often there is a superposition of various species. Known forms of iron gallate are definitely not present on the inked papers. The observed ferric species can be remains of Fe3+ polyphenol complexes of the ink, complexes of Fe3+ with degradation products of the cellulose of the paper or gum arabic, or very small iron oxide or hydroxide nanoparticles.