Large scale solar production of fullerenes and carbon nanotubes

Direct vaporization of graphite, under inert gas atmosphere, using a 2 kW solar furnace of the Odeillo institute, gives fullerenes with a yield which can reach 20 %. In the same way, vaporizing graphite/bimetal targets we can produce single-wall carbon nanotubes. The limiting factor is the target temperature which is around 3000 K. With a more powerful furnace (1000 kW) for which the vaporization temperature could reach 3400 K for larger targets we can increase significantly the fullerenes yield or the purity of carbon nanotubes. We report the first results obtained with this new set-up.