Abstract
This work reports the continuous and large-scale production of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) from xylene/ferrocene in a swirled floating catalyst chemical vapor deposition reactor using argon as the carrier gas. The concentration of ferrocene used was 0.01 g/mL of xylene. In every run, 50-mL xylene gas was used together with xylene/ferrocene mixture injected into the reactor by means of a burette. The MWCNTs produced were characterized using the transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Raman spectra. TEM analysis showed a poor production rate at 850 °C and a good production in the range of 900–1000 °C with optimal production rate at 950 °C. Furthermore, xylene/ferrocene mixture produced more MWCNTs at 950 °C with H:Ar (1:7) as the carrier gas. The diameters of the MWCNTs in the temperatures studied ranged from 15 to 95 nm with wall thicknesses between 0.5 and 0.8 nm.
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Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the financial support from the National Research Foundation (NRF) focus areas (NRF Nanotechnology flagship program, and Department of Science and Technology (DST)/NRF Centre of Excellence). The student bursaries provided by the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg are much appreciated.
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Yah, C.S., Iyuke, S.E., Simate, G.S. et al. Continuous synthesis of multiwalled carbon nanotubes from xylene using the swirled floating catalyst chemical vapor deposition technique. Journal of Materials Research 26, 640–644 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2010.69
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2010.69