Synthesis and characterization of aluminum-doped graphitic carbon

Heteroatom doping of graphitic carbon is of high interest for tuning its physicochemical properties. Aluminum is commonly reported as a high-interest dopant, but few synthetic strategies have been reported owing to the low equilibrium solubility of Al within graphite. Herein we report several strategies to achieve metastable aluminum-substituted turbostratic graphitic carbon materials with aluminum contents up to ~ 0.5 at%, via co-pyrolysis of two molecular precursors between 800 and 1100°C. The resulting materials exhibit turbostratic graphitic structure and a previously unreported aluminum environment detectable by X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), a likely signature of trigonal planar or puckered AlC₃-type sites.

Graphical abstract