Patent Application: US-93472707-A

Abstract:
few - walled carbon nanotubes can be synthesized in a simple chemical vapor deposition system using a mixture of methanol and ethanol as the carbon source . in preferred embodiments , the present invention uses an ethanol / methanol mixture as the carbon source so that few walled nanotubes with high purity can be prepared following a simplified purification process . under the growth conditions of the present invention , ethanol is believed to act as the carbon source while methanol is believed to act as a “ carbonaceous impurity remover ” to remove the impurities deposited on a support and thereby hinder the formation of such impurities .

Description:
according to the present invention , high purity few - walled carbon nanotubes are prepared by a chemical vapor deposition method with ethanol / methanol mixture as carbon source . preferably , co / mo / mgo is employed as catalyst . a high resolution tem image of fwnts made according to the present invention is shown in fig1 . as compared to the samples prepared from pure ethanol as a carbon source , samples from an ethanol / methanol mixture are of higher purity and can be more easily purified . it is suspected that the oxidative radicals generated by methanol decomposition hindered the formation of carbonaceous impurities on mgo support . thus , the produced raw materials contain less carbonaceous impurities and the carbonaceous impurities have more defects . such impurities have lower burning temperatures under airflow compare to impurities prepared from pure ethanol during nanotube growth , making the purification with air oxidation more effective . a catalyst was prepared by a combustion method 5 . specifically , a clear solution was first prepared by dissolving mg ( no 3 ) 2 . 6h 2 o , ( nh 4 ) 6 mo 7 o 24 . 4h 2 o , co ( no 3 ) 2 . 6h 2 o , citric acid and glycine in deionized ( di ) water . the atomic ratio between metals was co : mo : mg = 1 : 3 : 48 . the solution was then heated to evaporate the solvent . after all the solvent was evaporated , the residue was combusted . the catalyst was obtained by collecting the ashes and annealing them at 500 ° c . for 1 hour . mgo blank catalyst was prepared by the same procedure with mg ( no 3 ) 2 , glycine and citric acid . fwnts were then synthesized in a one - inch quartz tube heated in a tube furnace . the carbon source used for fwnts synthesis was an ethanol / methanol mixture with different ratios . ( as used herein , all ratios are volume ratios unless specifically identified to the contrary .) in a typical experiment , the catalyst was first heated from room temperature to 1100 ° c . under in a 1500 sccm ar and 500 sccm h 2 mixture . after the temperature reached 1100 ° c ., h 2 was turned off , ar was increased to 2000 sccm , and the methanol / ethanol mixture was added to the system using a syringe pump at a controlled rate of 20 ml / hr . after 20 min , the methanol / ethanol was turned off and the system was cooled down to room temperature . to purify the sample , the raw material was first heated under 1 : 4 air / ar mixture ( 350 sccm air and 1400 sccm ar ) at 575 □ for 2 . 5 hr , and then stirred in 6m hcl to remove the co / mo catalyst and mgo support . the sample was rinsed with diluted koh aqueous solution and deionized water ( di water ). both the raw and purified products were characterized with thermogravimetric analyzer ( tga ), transmission electron microscopy ( tem ) and x - ray diffraction ( xrd ). all the tga measurements were done under diluted air ( 20 vol % air and 80 vol % ar ). tem samples were prepared by dispersing the fwnt samples in ethanol under assistance of sonication and drop - drying the mixture on copper grids ( ted pella ) at room temperature . other than fwnts , there are always carbonaceous impurities in fwnt raw material ( see fig1 a ). these non - cnt carbonaceous species make purification of fwnts rather difficult and inefficient . the impurities not only form due to the inhomogeneity of catalyst particles but also form due to deposition of carbon on the mgo support . blank control samples were prepared by treating pure mgo powder at exactly the same condition as fwnt synthesis described above with ethanol as the carbon source . photograph and tga weight loss plot of the mgo blank control sample is shown in fig2 a . the black color of control sample of fig2 a suggests that there are significant amounts of carbonaceous species deposited on the mgo even without the catalyst nanoparticles under such a condition . the tga weight loss plot shows the carbon yield is approximately 54 % while the tem image ( fig3 ) shows there are no cnts in the sample . it is important to prevent the formation of these non - cnt carbon species on the mgo support to improve the fwnt purity in raw material . to reduce the formation of these carbonaceous impurities , an ethanol / methanol mixture was explored as the carbon source for fwnt synthesis . fig2 b through 2 d show photographs and tga weight loss plots of a series of control samples using ethanol / methanol mixtures of different volume ratios as carbon sources on blank mgo supports . one same shown in fig2 e was prepared using 100 % methanol ( 0 % ethanol ). the five samples shown in fig2 a - 2 e can be divided into two groups according to their colors . specifically , samples made from 100 and 80 vol % ethanol belong to one group which are black ( fig2 a and 2 b ) while the samples made from 50 , 20 and 0 vol % ethanol belong to another group which are white or light gray ( fig2 c - 2 e ). carbon yields of these blank samples can be deduced from the tga weight loss plots depicted . the two black samples show a significant amount of carbon deposited ; while lighter colored samples show almost no carbonaceous species . these results suggest that addition of methanol to ethanol in a volume ratio range of methanol to ethanol between about 20 : 80 to about 80 : 20 reduces the carbon deposit on a pure mgo support . this reduction in carbon deposit on a pure mgo support is most notable when the volume percentage of methanol is greater than 50 %, that is at a volume ratio of methanol to ethanol of about 50 : 50 or greater . accompanying fig4 shows the first order differentiation of the weight loss plots of the blank samples . first order differentiation of the tga weight loss plot can be used to evaluate the composition of the samples . peaks at higher temperatures indicate the existence of carbonaceous species with higher burning temperatures and less defective graphite . the number and position of the peaks depend on tga parameters such as heating speed , carrier gas composition and flow rate as well as the amount and ratio of carbonaceous species in the sample . burning temperatures of carbonaceous impurities are important since selective oxidation of carbonaceous impurities under diluted air is the most efficient method so far for fwnt sample purification . higher burning temperature of the carbonaceous impurities results in less effective purification and / or very low purification yield . peak positions in fig4 are summarized in table 1 below . as shown in fig4 , there are up to four peaks in each of the plots . the highest peak is around 700 ° c . only samples prepared with 100 vol % and 80 vol % ethanol show the peak at 700 ° c . all samples show the lowest peak which is around 280 ° c . samples with higher ethanol percentage ( 100 vol % and 80 vol %) show a peak around 600 □ and those with lower ethanol percentage ( 50 vol % and 20 vol %) show a peak around 520 ° c . samples prepared with pure methanol do not show these intermediate peaks . peak intensities of samples also vary considerably as a function of ethanol volume percentage . these results suggest that when the ethanol percentage in the mixture is less than 50 vol %, the amount of carbonaceous species deposited on mgo support is small and easily removed . higher purity raw fwnt material with less carbonaceous impurities thus is expected from a carbon source with low ethanol percentage . this expectation is confirmed by the purification results . specifically , as shown in fig5 a and 5 b , samples prepared using low ethanol percentage carbon sources are almost free of impurities after purification , while considerable carbonaceous impurities can still be found in the purified samples obtained from raw samples prepared with higher ethanol percentage carbon sources . among all the reported results of cnt synthesis with alcohol as carbon source , most used ethanol 22 , 25 - 27 as the carbon source and only a few used methanol 23 , 34 . oxidative radicals formed during alcohol decomposion are considered to play an important role in the cnt growth 22 , 24 . the oxidative radicals have two effects on cnt material , one is etching carbonaceous impurities and the other is making carbonaceous impurities more defective so that they are easier to be removed by selective oxidation . according to the present invention , methanol and ethanol , the two simplest alcohol members have been discovered to be usefully employed as a carbon source for fwnt synthesis . however , surprisingly they each acted totally differently . under the specific growth conditions , it was discovered that ethanol by itself can act as carbon source for fwnt growth , while methanol can not be used as a carbon source under the same conditions . samples made from pure methanol do not show any carbon deposition . tga and xrd results show no carbon signal and no cnts were found under tem . the effect of adding methanol to ethanol is not simply to dilute ethanol in the feeding gas stream . for example , when a carbon source of ethanol only was fed with a rate of 10 ml / hr , the carbon yield on pure mgo support was 38 %. in contrast , a mixture of 50 vol % ethanol and 50 vol % methanol fed with 20 ml / hr deposits almost no carbon on an mgo support ( fig2 c ). without wishing to be bound to any particular theory , it is believed that oxidative radicals generated from methanol decomposition play an important role in the fwnt growth . the decomposition of methanol resulted in stronger oxidative environment during fwnt growth . under such conditions , carbonaceous species with less stable structure may be removed . similar effect has also been reported in the art 23 , 34 and showed that there are fewer small diameter swnts in samples made from methanol than those from ethanol . under the fwnt growth condition , the oxidative environment is strong enough to remove almost all carbon deposit on a mgo support when methanol was employed as the carbon source . this hypothesis is consistent with the decreased carbon yield of raw fwnt material as a function of the increased methanol percentage in the mixture . moreover , although an oxidative environment can help to remove carbonaceous impurities during the fwnt growth , fwnts may also be removed if the oxidizability of the environment is stronger than necessary . thus , if only about 1 % o 2 is added to ar carrier gas , almost no fwnts can be found in the sample . while the invention has been described in connection with what is presently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiment , it is to be understood that the invention is not to be limited to the disclosed embodiment , but on the contrary , is intended to cover various modifications and equivalent arrangements included within the spirit and scope thereof . references : 1 ( 1 ) lijima , s . nature 1991 , 354 , 56 . 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