Structure of non-graphitising carbons

Despite many years of research, the detailed atomic structure of many important carbon materials remains poorly understood. In particular, the structure of those carbons which can not be transformed into graphite by high temperature heat treatment has never been clearly established. These non-graphitising carbons are of considerable commercial importance in a variety of fields, and a better understanding of their structure is clearly needed. Recently, it has been suggested that non-graphitising carbons may have a microstructure which is related to that of fullerenes. In the present paper, the evidence for this will be considered in detail and the advantages of the new model over previous models of non-graphitising carbons will be discussed. As well as microporous nongraphitising carbons, other forms of carbon including glassy carbon and carbon fibres will be considered.