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Mild purification of multiwalled carbon nanotubes with increased selectivity for carbon impurity and residual metal removal

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Abstract

In this study, the refinement of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNTs) derived from chemical vapor decomposition is investigated. An ultrasonic pretreatment method is employed to disentangle carbon and metal impurities intertwined with MWCNTs. The pretreated MWCNTs exhibit a marginal decrease in C–O/C = O content from 8.9 to 8.8%, accompanied by a 2.5% increase in sp3 carbon content, indicating a mildly destructive pretreatment approach. Subsequently, selective oxidation by CO2 and hydrochloric acid etching are utilized to selectively remove carbon impurities and residual metal, respectively. The resulting yield of intact MWCNTs is approximately 85.65 wt.%, signifying a 19.91% enhancement in the one-way yield of pristine MWCNTs. Notably, the residual metal content experiences a substantial reduction from 9.95 ± 2.42 wt.% to 1.34 ± 0.06 wt.%, representing a 15.68% increase in the removal rate. These compelling findings highlight the potential of employing a mild purification process for MWCNTs production, demonstrating promising application prospects.

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Acknowledgements

We appreciate the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21978181 and 22178229). In addition, we would like to thank the Institute of New Energy and Low-Carbon Technology, Sichuan University, for SEM capture. Moreover, we are particularly grateful to the Center of Engineering Experimental Teaching, School of Chemical Engineering, Sichuan University, for TGA, FT-IR and Raman technical assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Low-Carbon Technology and Chemical Reaction Engineering Laboratory, School of Chemical Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, People’s Republic of China

    Erdong Chen, Qiang Liu, Pan Wu, Jian He, Changjun Liu & Wei Jiang

  2. Research Institute of Tianfu New Energy, Chengdu, 610065, People’s Republic of China

    Qiang Liu

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  1. Erdong Chen
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  2. Qiang Liu
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  3. Pan Wu
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  4. Jian He
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  5. Changjun Liu
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Contributions

The manuscript was written through contributions of all authors. All authors have given approval to the final version of the manuscript. EC and QL conducted the experiments and characterizations, and PW, JH, CL, WJ gave supports on experiment guides and facilities.

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Correspondence to Wei Jiang.

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Chen, E., Liu, Q., Wu, P. et al. Mild purification of multiwalled carbon nanotubes with increased selectivity for carbon impurity and residual metal removal. Carbon Lett. 34, 407–420 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42823-023-00667-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42823-023-00667-0

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