Synthesis, structural, and field electron emission properties of quasi-aligned carbon nanotubes from gutter oil

Abstract

Quasi-aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been successfully synthesised from the simple pyrolysis of gutter oil as starting material and ferrocene as a catalyst. The synthesis process was performed at synthesis and vaporisation temperatures of 800 and 250 °C, respectively, in a thermal chemical vapour deposition furnace. The CNTs synthesised using gutter oil have an overall diameter of about 30–50 nm, length of 30 μm, ID/IG ratio of 0.66, and purity of 81%, comparable to those obtained using conventional carbon sources. A field electron emission study of the CNTs exhibited a low turn-on and threshold field of 1.94 and 2.94 V μm−1, which corresponded to current densities of 100 μA cm−2 and 1.0 mA cm−2, respectively which indicate that the CNTs synthesised are suitable candidates for use as field electron emitters. The synthesised CNTs from gutter oil also open up potential mass production applications in energy storage devices. This study demonstrates that gutter oil, a low-cost and readily available resource, can be used as an inexpensive carbon source for the mass production of CNTs.