Hi. I would like to know the characterization techniques to confirm the synthesis of Carbon nanofoam (CNF). Most of the articles use SEM/TEM or helium ion microscopy to confirm. Can anyone suggest me the research article to confirm the distinguished characteristics of CNF apart from other carbon allotropes. Please attach research and review articles to cite if possible. Thanks in advance.
HRTEM is best and for the surface hierarchy and morphology AFM and HRSEM are best.
What do you mean by nanofoam: what is the characteristic pore size ? If less than 50 nm, gas adsorption is a mandory technique for getting surface area, pore volumes in this range of sizes, and pore-size distribution. TEM is necessary for seeing how the pores look like (in terms of morphology and connectivity), but will show you only some of them and won't be representative of the full sample. You'll get discrete values of pore size, but not a distribution. If the pores are larger than 4 nm, mercury porosimetry is very important as well, since macropores will be also studied.
In summary, TEM is OK but far from being enough. You may look at the literature dealing with carbon gels for being convinced.
Alain
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