Doped glassy carbon materials (DGC). Their synthesis and investigation of their properties

Our route to the preparation of doped glassy carbon solids allows the incorporation of elements in a controlled manner, both in type of element(s) and level of doping. The introduction of dopants into carbon electrodes may profoundly affect their electrochemical behavior with respect to stability, adsorption, and catalysis. Just as dopants in silicon provided materials for the electronic revolution, controlled doping of glassy carbon materials may radically improve their electrochemical behavior. Our initial synthetic efforts have been focused on the preparation of solids doped with main group elements: a low temperature route using diacetylenic polymer precursors to these modified glassy carbon materials. The physical properties of these materials, including electrical resistivity, thermal stability, microscopic structure, density, and elastic modulus were examined. We have prepared solids which incorporate silicon, chlorine and fluorine.