Abstract
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are synthesized by the flame fragment deposition (FFD) technique using Iraqi liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as a source of carbon in a hand-made reactor at a low temperature (160 °C) without using a catalyst. Purification of the multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) is carried out using a two-step process consisting of sonication in 30 wt.% hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) solution at room temperature to remove amorphous impurities adhering to the walls of the CNTs and carbon nanoparticles (CNPs), followed by sonication in an acetone bath to remove the polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) formed during the LPG gas burning. Comprehensive characterizations such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were conducted to verify the efficiency of the purification process. The results clearly demonstrated that this process is promising for the purification of the synthesized CNTs.
Highlights
Since their discovery in 1990 [1], carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have attracted remarkable interest because of their unique physical [2], chemical [3], and mechanical properties [4,5]
The materials used in this experiment was methanol (99.85%) from Hyman, England, acetone (99%)
The N2 (99.999%) gas was purchased from Emirates industrial gases, Dubai, United Arab
Summary
Since their discovery in 1990 [1], carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have attracted remarkable interest because of their unique physical [2], chemical [3], and mechanical properties [4,5]. They have been used in various applications such as catalysis [6], biotechnology and biomedicine [7,8], probing of field emission stability [9], and even as a template to make some metal oxide nanostructures [10]. All the purification methods deal with one target, which is the removal of amorphous carbon, carbon nanoparticles, and the residual catalyst that was used in Materials 2020, 13, 2342; doi:10.3390/ma13102342 www.mdpi.com/journal/materials
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