Combination effect of growth enhancers and carbon sources on synthesis of single-walled carbon nanotubes from solid carbon growth seeds

TL;DR

This study explores how water and carbon dioxide influence the high-temperature synthesis of single-walled carbon nanotubes using nonmetallic nanodiamond-derived seeds, revealing conditions that improve purity and yield.

Contribution

It demonstrates the effects of H2O and CO2 as growth enhancers in SWCNT synthesis with nonmetallic seeds, highlighting their roles in impurity removal and growth promotion.

Findings

H2O effectively etches amorphous carbon during growth.

CO2 improves SWCNT purity with C2H4 but promotes amorphous carbon formation with C2H2.

CO2 and C2H2 together increase SWCNT yield through dehydration reactions.

Abstract

In the synthesis of highly crystalline single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), high growth temperatures are preferred, while the formation of impurity amorphous carbon (a-C) causes the termination of SWCNT growth and degrades its properties. To remove this by-product, H2O and CO2 have been employed in metal-catalyzed SWCNT growth systems because of their oxidizing ability. Recently, nonmetallic nanoparticles have become one of the growth seed candidates because of their high melting points and fewer metal impurities. In this study, by using nanodiamond-derived carbon nanoparticles as the solid growth seeds, we investigated the effect of CO2 and H2O on high-temperature SWCNT growth with two types of carbon-source supplies: C2H2 and C2H4. In this growth system, H2O showed oxidizing ability to etch a-C with either carbon sources. CO2 exhibited a similar a-C formation-preventing role in C2H4-supplied growth and achieved higher-purity SWCNTs with higher concentration of C2H4 than the case of H2O. However, in contrast to the other combinations, CO2 injection in the C2H2-supplied growth significantly enhanced the formation of a-C rather than the removal of it while the yield of SWCNTs was also increased, indicating the occurrence of the dehydration reaction between CO2 and C2H2. The present findings will lead to efficient growth of high-quality SWCNTs from nonmetallic growth seeds with the use of growth enhancers.