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Direct chemical vapor deposition growth of graphene on Ni particles using solid carbon sources

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Abstract

Graphene has attained a considerable amount of popularity as an attractive ultra-thin reinforcement for nickel (Ni) matrix composites in recent years. However, its excellent reinforcement efficiency is suffered from the agglomeration of graphene nanosheets in manufacturing process and the poor bonding strength of graphene with Ni matrix. To overcome these two problems, one of the efficient strategies is to in-situ grow graphene reinforcements on Ni particles for powder metallurgy. This work aims to synthesize uniform graphene@Ni composite particles by using polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) as the solid sources for chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process. The results demonstrate that few-layer or multilayer graphene with different morphologies can be grown on the particles by controlling the PMMA content and annealed temperature, respectively. The optimum condition for the formation of high-quality few-layer graphene is 1.0 mg·ml−1 PMMA and 900 °C. A competition mechanism rises from the growth kinetic, and the spatial confinement effect has led to the formation of graphene with different microstructures and morphologies.

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51801133, U1860204 and 51871159), the Natural Science Foundation of Shanxi Province (Nos. 201801D221125 and 201801D221135) and the Undergraduate Training Program for Innovation and Entrepreneurship of Shanxi Province (No. 201808).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China

    Feng Zheng, Ying Liu, Cai-Li Zhang, Jian Wang, Nan Dong & Pei-De Han

  2. Institute of New Carbon Materials, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China

    Yan-Xia Wu & Yu-Cheng Wu

Authors
  1. Feng Zheng
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  2. Ying Liu
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  3. Cai-Li Zhang
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  4. Jian Wang
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  5. Nan Dong
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  6. Pei-De Han
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  7. Yan-Xia Wu
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  8. Yu-Cheng Wu
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Correspondence to Ying Liu or Cai-Li Zhang.

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Zheng, F., Liu, Y., Zhang, CL. et al. Direct chemical vapor deposition growth of graphene on Ni particles using solid carbon sources. Rare Met. 40, 2275–2280 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-020-01610-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-020-01610-2

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