SYNTHESIS OF GRAPHITE-INTERCALATION COMPOUNDS WITH CR-VI COMPOUNDS USING CRO3 AND HCL AT ROOM-TEMPERATURE

A new and simple method was developed to synthesize graphite intercala tion compounds (GICs) with Cr-VI compounds from natural graphite host with different sizes from 10 to 400 mu m at room temperature under atm ospheric conditions. The stage structure of the GICs was controlled by changing the reaction time and relative amounts of graphite, CrO3 and HCl; stage-2 GIC was produced after keeping graphite, CrO3 and 12 M H Cl in a molar ratio of 1:2:1 for 15 days. The stage number increased w ith increase in the relative amount of HCl and no intercalation was ob served using more than 5 mol. A lower concentration of HCl (3 M) also performed the intercalation. The presence of Cr-VI in GICs synthesized was proved by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. (C) 1998 Elsevier Sci ence S.A. All rights reserved.