Synthesis of carbon nanotubes filled with Fe3C nanowires by CVD with titanate modified palygorskite as catalyst

✍ Scribed by Jipeng Cheng; Xiaobin Zhang; Fu Liu; Jiangping Tu; Ying Ye; Yujie Ji; Changpin Chen

• Book ID: 104106621
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 455 KB
• Volume: 41
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-6223
• DOI: 10.1016/s0008-6223(03)00185-4

✦ Synopsis

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) have been successfully synthesized with titanate-modified palygorskite as catalyst and acetylene as carbon source by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) at high temperature. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies showed that there were a lot of carbon nanotubes partially filled with elongated foreign material in their inner cavities. X-ray energy dispersive spectrum (EDS) analyses and selected area electron diffraction (SAED) investigations on the encapsulated material revealed that it was single crystalline iron carbide (Fe C) derived from ferric 3 precursors in the mineral. The yield of carbon nanotubes was influenced by preparation temperature based on thermal gravimetric analyses (TGA). The relative quantity of Fe C nanowires was influenced by the temperature and the local 3 structure of nanotubes upon TEM observations. A growth mechanism is also proposed in the paper.