OVERLINE: A Cooler Route to Nanotubes – Szuromi

Abstract

Carbon nanotubes can be generated on a surface through chemical vapor deposition. If part of a surface is covered with a transition metal catalyst such as iron or cobalt, simple hydrocarbons such as ethylene (C2H4) can decompose at high temperatures and form straight single-walled nanobutes growing normal to the surface. Dosa et al. have been exploring whether larger hydrocarbons with many double and triple bonds would react to form nonotubes at lower temperatures. These species reacted explosively however and yielded only a small fraction of carbon particles. Adding metal catalysts simply produced carbon soots. They now report that large unsaturated hydrocarboins that incorporate cobalt, nickel, or iron (complexed with carbonyl ligands) did react at relatively low temperatures (below 200) and prodced multiwalled carbon nanobutes with the metals trapped as particles withing nanotubes. Because numerous variants of these starting materials can be prepared, this lower temperature route may lead to greater synthetic control of nanotube fabrication.– PDS J. Am. Chem. Soc. 121 , 10430 (1999)