The
demand for high-modulus, high-strength, lightweight materials
has continuously driven the bottom-up assembly of carbon nanostructures
into high-performance bulk carbon materials, such as graphene sheets
and carbon nanotube yarns. Carbyne, often called linear carbon, has
a higher predicted gravimetric modulus and gravimetric strength than
any other form of carbon, but possibly reacts under near-ambient conditions
because of the extended sp
1 hybridization.
The successful fabrication of carbon nanotube wrapped single carbyne
chain (Shi et al. Nat. Mater. 2016, 15, 634) suggests the possibility of
carbyne’s bulk production. Herein, we designed a type of carbon
assembly that includes a possibly large array of carbyne chains confined
within a single-walled nanotube sheath (nanotube wrapped carbynes,
NTWCs), in which carbyne chains act as reinforcing building blocks,
and the carbon nanotube sheath protects the multiple carbyne chains
against chemical or topochemical
reaction. We showed that NTWCs exhibit confinement-enhanced stabilities,
even when they contain multiple neighboring carbyne chains. We developed
a mechanics model for exploring the mechanical properties of NTWCs.
On the basis of this model, the gravimetric modulus (and strength)
of NTWCs was predicted to increase from 356.4 (50.25) to 977.2 GPa·g–1·cm3 (71.20 GPa·g–1·cm3) as the mass ratio of carbyne carbons to sheath
carbons increases, which is supported by atomistic simulations. The
highest calculated gravimetric modulus and strength of NTWCs are 174.2%
and 41.7%, respectively, higher than those of either graphene or carbon
nanotubes. The corresponding highest values of engineering modulus
and strength of NTWCs with a density of 1.54 g·cm–3 are 1505 and 109.6 GPa, respectively. Hence, NTWCs are promising
for uses in high-modulus, high-strength, lightweight composites.
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