US 5,851,417 AGranted

Elemental metals, oxides, or alloys distributed on a carbon substrate or self-supported and process therefor

OwnerChing-Cheh Hunginventor

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Abstract

A plurality of processes for producing unique end products containing elemental metals or metal oxides on and in a carbon substrate, elemental metals or metal oxides in the absence of such a carbon substrate, mixtures of elemental metals or metal oxides on and in a carbon substrate, or mixtures of elemental metals or metal oxides in the absence of such a carbon substrate, all of which processes involve the preparation of a first-step intermediate product that is a carbonaceous material appearing to be non-graphitic by X-ray diffraction standards and containing metal and halogen, which intermediate product is made from graphite fluoride and an appropriate metal halide. Among the end products are aluminum oxide fibers, elemental iron fibers, magnetic carbon fibers containing either iron or an iron-nickel alloy, and carbon containing various metals in the form of elemental metal or oxides.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method of making chemically-modified carbon-based materials from a precursor containing graphite fluoride, said method comprising:

exposing graphite fluoride to a halide of a first metal, said halide being a compound of only said first metal and a halogen, in an atmosphere composed of a gas selected from the group consisting of noble gas, chlorine, nitrogen, nitrogen-chlorine mixture, and noble gas-chlorine mixture, said exposure being at a temperature between approximately 100.degree. C. and approximately 450.degree. C., for sufficient time to effect substantially complete defluorination of said graphite fluoride while also permitting said halide to enter into and alter the laminar crystal structure of said graphite fluoride, thereby resulting in a carbonaceous material appearing to be non-graphitic by X-ray diffraction standards, in that the X-ray spectrograph of the product shows no sharp peak at a position that would indicate a crystal lattice spacing at or around 3.375 Angstrom units that represents the 002 lattice spacing of graphite, and containing said first metal and said halogen.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.