Effect of Catalysts on Production of Carbon Nanostructures

Carbon nanofibers and nanotubes were produced by using a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process in which a hydrocarbon source was used over a metal based catalyst and the reaction conditions such as temperature and flow rate of the hydrocarbon source and inert gas were optimized. It is possible to find a lot of work in the literature which used approximately this system to produce nanofiber and nanotubes then characterized the products. Knowing that the key point was the catalyst in CVD process, our aim was to investigate the role of the catalyst in detail and relate the properties of the catalyst to the properties of the final product. For this reason, we had produced a series of transition metal catalysts by different methods and tested their success during the catalytic growth of carbon nanofiber and nanotubes and related the results with the properties of the catalysts such as the surface properties, stability and electronic properties.