Facilitating the CVD synthesis of seamless double-walled carbon nanotubes

Abstract

In this contribution we present a simple laser assisted chemical vapour (LA-CVD)technique that rapidly determines if a given catalyst and feedstock combination areappropriate for the bulk synthesis of double-walled carbon nanotubes (DWCNT) inconventional thermal CVD (T-CVD). Systematic T-CVD studies across a range oftemperatures with a Fe–Co catalyst mix for two carbon feedstocks (ethanol and methane)were conducted to validate the LA-CVD technique. The T-CVD findings confirm that theLA-CVD route is appropriate as a fast and easy means to determine the primary carbonnanotube product for a selected catalyst and feedstock in T-CVD. The LA-CVD routereduces the optimization parameters in T-CVD to only that of temperature. The studiesled to the bulk production of seamless DWCNT with yields better than 55%.