Pressure-Temperature-Induced Transformations of Hydrocarbon- Fluorocarbon Mixtures into Nano- and Micron-Size Diamonds

Studies of thermal transformations of naphthalene (С10Н8), fluorographite (CF1.1) and octafluoronaphthalene (С10F8) and their binary mixtures (С10Н8 – CF1.1, С10Н8 – C10F8) under pressure of 8 GPa have been undertaken as models for gaining understanding of processes of carbonization, graphitization and diamond formation in pure hydrocarbon, fluorocarbon and carbon-hydrogen-fluorine-containing systems under high pressures. The studies found a significant reduction in the initiation temperature thresholds for all major thermal transformation processes in case of binary mixtures with respect to thresholds for pure hydrocarbon and fluorocarbon compounds. Another distinctive feature of the transformations of binary mixtures with respect to diamond formation stage of the transformations of pure hydrocarbons, has been the presence of massive quantity of nanosize (10–60 nm) diamond fraction in the products from binary mixtures along with the micron-size (5–20 μm) diamond fraction, typically observed in the transformations of pure hydrocarbons. The origin of nanodiamond was related to the specifics of carbonization of fluorocarbon compounds under pressure, which at 800–1000 °С produces, along with submicron particles of graphite-like material, a significant amount of closed shell 2–5 layer carbon nanoparticles of 5–15 nm size. These onion-like carbon nanoparticles act as precursors for formation of nano size diamond fractions in the transformations of binary mixtures of hydrocarbon and fluorocarbon compounds. These results potentially open a new direction for metal catalyst-free synthesis of pure and doped diamonds for broad applications. The present article gives an overview of this emerging area of research