Catalytic Production of Carbon Nanotubes in a Swirled Fluid Chemical Vapour Deposition Reactor

Abstract

Catalytic graphitisation of carbon was used to explain the synthesis of carbon nanotubes from acetylene using the catalytic chemical vapour deposition method. This was achieved by comparing the kinetics of synthesis of carbon nanotubes at varying acetylene concentrations and different operating temperature ranging from 850 to 1100 deg.C, using the Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism to obtain the model kinetics. Optimum production rate of carbon nanotubes and carbon nanofibres of 8.2mg/s was observed at 1000 deg.C and acetylene concentration of 4725 ppm. 4th order kinetics was also proposed and the data fitted the experiments quite well. Comparison of experimental results with the computed values shows appreciable agreement with correlation coefficients ranging from 0.81-0.99.