Author/Authors :
Cartwright، نويسنده , , Richard J. and Esconjauregui، نويسنده , , Santiago and Weatherup، نويسنده , , Robert S. and Hardeman، نويسنده , , David and Guo، نويسنده , , Yuzheng and Wright، نويسنده , , Eleanor and Oakes، نويسنده , , Daniel and Hofmann، نويسنده , , Stephan and Robertson، نويسنده , , John، نويسنده ,
Abstract :
We report the growth of vertically-aligned nanotube forests, of up to 0.2 mm in height, on an 85:15 sp2:sp3 carbon support with Fe catalyst. This is achieved by purely-thermal chemical vapour deposition with the catalyst pretreated in inert environments. Pretreating the catalyst in a reducing atmosphere causes catalyst diffusion into the support and the growth of defective tubes. Other sp2:sp3 compositions, including graphite, tetrahedral amorphous carbon, and pure diamond, also lead to the growth of defective carbon morphologies. These results pave the way towards controlled growth of forests on carbon fibres. It could give rise to applications in enhanced fuel cell electrodes and better hierarchical carbon fibre-nanotube composites.
