Synthesis of carbon nanotubes using Cu-Cr-O as catalyst by chemical vapor deposition

Abstract

A novel powder catalyst Cu-Cr-O applied to the synthesis of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) was developed, which was prepared via ammonia precipitation method. Techniques of thermo-gravimetric/differential scanning calorimeter (TG-DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD) as well as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) have been employed to characterize the thermal decomposition procedure, crystal phase and micro structural morphologies of the as-synthesized materials, respectively. The results show that carbon nanotubes are successfully synthesized using Cu-Cr-O as catalyst when the precursors are calcined at 400, 500, 600, and 700 °C. The results indicate that the calcination of the Cu-Cr-O catalyst at 600 °C is an effective method to get MWCNT with few nano-tube defects or amorphous carbons.

Keywords

carbon nanotubes / Cu-Cr-O catalyst / chemical vapor deposition / calcined temperature

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