Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 January 2011
Activated carbon is widely used for its attractive diffusion, adsorption and reaction properties. However, its mechanical behavior has received much less attention. We present a molecular dynamics simulation study on the elastic properties of activated carbon with nanometer-sized pores. The nanoporous carbon sample is composed of curved and defected graphene sheets, which is synthesized using quench molecular dynamics (QMD) method [1]. One unique feature of the current model is the mechanical stability, thus the bulk modulus, Young’s modulus, shear modulus and Poisson’s ratio can be obtained from simulated mechanical tests. By varying the density of the nanoporous carbon model, it was further found that the bulk modulus vs. density relation follows Gibson-Ashby type power law with exponents of 2.80 at low densities and 1.65 at high densities.