Magnetic and Transport Properties of Heat-Treated Polyparaphenylene-Based Carbons

Electron spin resonance (ESR), magnetic susceptibility, and transport measurements were recently performed on a set of heat-treated polyparaphenylene (PPP)-based carbon samples, which are of significant interest as novel carbon-based anode electrodes in Li-ion batteries. Attention is focused on the evolution of the carbonaceous structures formed at low heat-treatment temperatures (T{sub HT}) in the regime of 600 C {le} T{sub HT} {le} 800 C, where percolative transport behavior is observed. At the percolation threshold, T{sub HT}{sup c} {approx} 700 C the coexistence of two spin centers with peak-to-peak Lorentzian linewidths of {Delta}H{sub pp}(300K) = 0.5 and 5.0 G is observed. The relatively high ratio of hydrogen carbon (H/C) near T{sub HT}{sup c} is believed to influence the ESR results through an unresolved hyperfine interaction. Curie-Weiss temperatures are found from measurements of [I{sub pp}({Delta}H{sub pp}){sup 2}]{sup {minus}1}, where I{sub pp} is the peak-to-peak lineheight, yielding results that are in agreement with static susceptibility, {chi}(T), measurements. At low T{sub HT}, PPP-based materials exhibit a large amount of disorder and this is evidenced by the high density of localized spins, N{sub C}, which is obtained from a Curie-Weiss fit to {chi}(T), assuming a spin quantum number of S = {1/2}. A model explaining themore » microstructure and high electrochemical doping capacity of PPP samples heat-treated to 700 C can be related to Li-ion battery performance.« less