Synthesis of a long strand of single-wall carbon nanotubes

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can be usefully applied to composites for extremely high strength, and thermal and electrical conductivity. Longer CNTs are better fitted for the implementation, and the syntheses have been reported. However, a detailed synthesis process has not yet been discovered to optimize the CNT quality and production yield. In this report, the synthesis temperature, composition of the source solution, source feed rate, etc, have been examined for production of high quality long strands of single-wall CNTs using scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and thermo-gravimetric analysis. It has been revealed that the higher synthesis temperature can produce higher quality CNTs, but only when the process parameters are optimized. Therefore, different optimum conditions exist at different synthesis temperatures. The best quality CNTs were obtained at 1100 °C, the highest temperature among the conditions tested.