Synthesis and characterization of carbonaceous-based nanomaterials produced in chemical vapor deposition (CVD) using copper catalyst

Abstract

Carbonaceous-based materials have several ways to be synthesized, such as synthesis epitaxy on SiC, graphite peeling in a liquid phase, or chemical vapor deposition (CVD). In the present study, we investigated the carbon-based materials produced in chemical vapor deposition (CVD) using the copper (Cu) catalyst. The chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process was performed at 600 °C using argon and acetylene gases flown into the CVD chamber until the pressure reached 0.50 MPa for 10 min. According to spectroscopic data analysis using X-Ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectrometer, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis, and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer, the products were confirmed to be carbonaceous nanomaterial with nano-graphene produced in a dominant yield. The XRD spectrum shows the diffraction peak at 2-theta of 25.08° referred to C(002) with broad characteristics as definitive proof of the disorder of the graphitic layer arrangement due to the widening distance of graphitic layer spacing. Under electron microscopy analysis, both of the catalyst and carbonaceous material were observed. In most of the regions observed shows the existence of nanographene layers in dominant. The identification of the functional groups by FTIR spectroscopy observed vibration bands located at wavenumbers around 3445, 2923, 2852, 1627, and 1026 cm−1, which represented to OH, =C(sp2)–H, –C(sp3)–H, C=C and C–O, respectively. Another analysis is performed by Raman spectroscopy which revealed D and G bands located at Raman shift around 1332 and 1604 cm−1 with a value of ID/IG 0.747 indicating that resulted graphene has a low defect on the graphitized structure.