SEMINAR

Recent advancements in the synthesis of carbon nanotubes

 

Jaegeun Lee

School of Chemical Engineering, Pusan National University, Busan, Republic of Korea, 46241

jglee@pusan.ac.kr

 

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are one of the earliest nanomaterials that opened up the era of nanotechnology about 30 years ago. During the past three decades, the synthesis techniques have been persistently grown. This lecture consists of two parts. In the first part, a general review on the synthesis of CNTs is provided, including the growth mechanism of CNTs and representative methods to synthesize CNTs. In the second part, a new approach to synthesize CNTs is introduced: the decoupling approach. In this approach, catalyst formation, thermal decomposition of gas-phase precursors, and catalytic growth of CNTs are decoupled, which are typically coupled in conventional methods. The decoupling approach allows for the independent investigation of each step and the exploration of a much wider experimental parameter space.