Green chemistry: carbon-bearing minerals as a source of nanocarbons

Natural abundant, cheap and widely used raw materials like calcite, magnesite and dolomite contain elemental carbon up to several wt percent. Such rocks have been chemically processed here using combustion synthesis route to yield novel nanocarbons including two-dimensional graphene-like structures. The fast and efficient reduction of powdered minerals with strong reducer (Mg) produces, after chemical wet purification, carbon nanomaterial which was analyzed using different techniques like XRD and SEM. This 'combustion' process was followed on-line to evaluate reaction duration (usually within 1 sec).