I have a "carbon powder" and I want to know if it is carbon or graphite. How can I check it?
XRD or Raman will give a global information about the structure of your sample. The corresponding spectra are indeed very different, whether you deal with disordered carbon or graphite.
Alain
Graphite has a unique crystal construction as compared to Carbon, so you can check the structure using SEM to see if it was Graphite or Carbon.
Put the powder in the furnace and ramp up the temperature to 800-900C under normal atmosphere. Carbon powders would be gone/disappear under such heat, but graphite powder would remain unchanged. That's why graphite is widely used as crucible.
come on man, don't say anything like that, I love my mtb! Anyway, mine is 6061 Al alloy. Carbon fiber frame is too expensive for amateur like me.
Graphite has a poly hexagonal platelet structure you can confirm using SEM. Refer to crystal lattice study on graphite and carbon and you can understand easily
It can be used to distinguish between two materials simply by density, volume of material and adhesion on the any surface. Carbon materials has a significantly adhesion, large volume in any container placed and very fine particle size. While Graphite don't adhere to any surface with a greasy feel and has a small volume in the container compared with Carbon.
Besides the furnace method suggested earlier (I'm not sure if it works, but it would be fun to try), XRD is the easiest way to check. You will ultimately be looking at a degree of crystallinity, or rather cystallite size. In the case of graphite you should see relatively sharp peaks, while for amorphous carbon you will see either no peaks, or similar peaks, but considerably broader. The broadened peaks suggests small crystalline domains (i think that some measure of crystallinity is inevitable; pyrolytic carbons, for example, generally have sporadic crystalline domains a few layers thick), and you can estimate the crystallite size using the Scherrer equation.
Refer to attachment on why the furnace method should work, and why it should not. Partial graphitization is the main concern here. Furnace method only work on pure graphite. I agree with Pavel, xrd is the best approach. The degree of graphitization is best illustrated via xrd pattern.
Is there a method for increasing the graphite portion in activated carbon?
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