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hubie [soylentnews.org] writes:

A new 2-D form of carbon that resembles graphene was discovered several years ago by Nina Fechler of the Max Planck Institute. This material exhibited some desirable properties where it excelled those seen in graphene, such as a much higher surface area and high electrocatalytic activity. A new paper [rsc.org] from Liu et al investigates the structure [rsc.org] of this new material.

Driven by their curiosity to understand how one material could accommodate all of these properties, the team used advanced TEM techniques to elucidate its structure. It turns out the material comprises interlinked carbon nanoribbons knitted into homogeneous layers and looks rather like a block of uncooked ramen noodles.

‘It’s a new type of carbon morphology that resembles graphene but is not graphene. It’s doped with nitrogen or sulfur, which are known to increase catalytic activity. The carbon noodle bands are terminated with one of these active molecules and are very accessible, making them potentially much better for any application that graphene is used for at the moment,’ explains Fechler. Changing the salts changes the heteroatoms; providing a route to tune the material’s properties.

As an added bonus this material is manufactured in a very low-tech manner, involving heating sugar and salt.

From the author summary:

2d-nanomaterials are a recent, important addition to their 3d counterparts and are presumably responsible for a most significant practical progresses in the nanoworld. For carbons, it is generally thought that “graphene” is the only 2d-version. The generation of inplane porosity (and its lining with heteroatoms) within sp2 carbon materials is another valuable target for efficient materials synthesis. Especially nitrogen-doped nanocarbons turned out to be a material family as such, as they offer unprecedented stability, electronic conductivity, and (electro)catalytic activities.

Original Submission