Preparation and mechanical properties of highly-aligned carbon micro-trees

✍ Scribed by Zhentao Li; Chao Hu; Chang Yu; Horst Adams; Jieshan Qiu

• Book ID: 104009059
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 569 KB
• Volume: 48
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-6223
• DOI: 10.1016/j.carbon.2010.01.059

✦ Synopsis

Carbon micro-trees with a diameter of 15-25 lm were synthesized in an acetylene atmosphere by arc-plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition from a coal-based carbon anode using iron as catalyst. The as-obtained carbon micro-trees were studied by scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, polarized light microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. It is found that the carbon micro-trees grow on the anode surface as highly-oriented arrays and have an anisotropic yet highly graphitized structure with a solid inner core. The Young's modulus of the micro-trees was determined to be 0.4 TPa on average, which is comparable to that of carbon nanotubes reported in literature.