Carbothermal shock enabled facile and fast growth of carbon nanotubes in a second

• Published in: Nano research Vol. 15; no. 3; pp. 2576 - 2581
• Main Authors: Wang, Haomin, Wang, Huimin, Zhang, Shuchen, Zhang, Yong, Xia, Kailun, Yin, Zhe, Zhang, Mingchao, Liang, Xiaoping, Lu, Haojie, Li, Shuo, Zhang, Jin, Zhang, Yingying
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing Tsinghua University Press 01.03.2022
• Subjects: Air filters; Air flow; Atomic/Molecular Structure and Spectra; Bimetals; Biomedicine; Biotechnology; Carbon; Carbon nanotubes; Carbon sources; Catalysts; Cerebrospinal fluid; Chemistry and Materials Science; Condensed Matter Physics; Ethanol; Materials Science; Nanoalloys; Nanomaterials; Nanoparticles; Nanotechnology; Nanotubes; Ohmic dissipation; Recarburizing; Research Article; Resistance heating; Salts; Silk; Substrates; Synthesis; Transition metals; ultra-fast growth; fluffy structure; carbon nanotube; carbothermal shock; Joule heating
• ISSN: 1998-0124; 1998-0000
• DOI: 10.1007/s12274-021-3762-8

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) hold great promise in many fields because of their unique structures and properties. However, the preparation of CNTs generally involves cumbersome equipment and time-consuming processes. Here, we report an ultra-fast carbothermal shock (CTS) approach for synthesizing CNTs with a simple homemade setup by employing Joule heating of a carbon substrate. Carbonized silk fabric (CSF) loaded with transition metal salts in ethanol solution was used as the substrate, which was treated with a pulse voltage of 40 V for only 50 ms and then covered with uniform CNTs grown with bimetallic alloy catalyst nanoparticles (diameter: ∼ 9 nm). The temperature ramp rate is as high as 10 5 K/s. The as-obtained sample has a unique fluffy structure similar to the trichobothrium of spiders, endowing it versatile applications such as airflow sensors or air filters. The CTS technique presents an easy-accessible and highly efficient approach for synthesizing CNTs, which may be also applied in synthesizing other nanomaterials.