Catalytic growth of carbon nanotubes through CHNO explosive detonation Original Research Article

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been efficiently synthesized by a self-heating detonation process, operated at low loading densities of picric acid (PA), which acts as the explosive to provide needed high temperatures and parts of carbon sources. Paraffin or benzene provides additional carbon source for tube assembling and hydrogen source to capture oxygen in PA to form H2O and thus to survive some carbon species from oxidation. Cobalt nanoparticles, in situ formed from a detonation-assisted decomposition and reduction of cobalt acetate, show good catalytic activity for nanotube nucleation and growth and for disproportionation reaction of CO generated from the PA detonation. The nanotubes and catalyst particles are characterized by SEM, TEM, EDX, SAED, XRD, and Raman spectroscopy techniques. Some tubes are well crystallized but others have lots of structural defects, especially for the tubes with thin walls and bamboo-like shapes. The catalyst particles show conical shapes and exhibit a fcc crystalline structure of parent cobalt. These data also experimentally show that tube growth is at a very high rate and suggest that it is possible for a large-scale synthesis of CNTs under high-density and high-pressure conditions.