Modification of Carbon Black for Application in Metal-Ion Batteries. I. The Influence of Heat Treatment on the Structure of Carbon Black

The influence of heat treatment in carbon dioxide atmosphere (900°C) and low-temperature graphitization (1500°C) on the transformation of primary particles in N375 carbon black was studied. According to TEM, the outer layer of primary particles increases in the length of the graphene layers from 0.96 to 1.28 nm under the influence of carbon dioxide treatment. The carbon in the inner part of the particles is intensively oxidized, which leads to the formation of micropores and an increase in the specific surface area of the material by almost 11 times. Further low-temperature graphitization of oxidized carbon black leads to the formation of polyhedral particles in its structure, consisting of extended graphite-like nanocrystallites with an interlayer distance d002 of 0.37—0.38 nm. The specific surface area of the obtained carbon black samples reached 216 m2/g, which is 2.5 times more than that for the original N375.