Design and synthesis of carbon nanotubes for adsorption utilities: An approach to direct preparation by mechanical milling at room temperature

Abstract

The Carbon Nano-Tubes (CNTs) were produced by mechanical milling of hexane in the presence of two different catalysts, namely amorphous and crystalline Fe, at Ar atmosphere. Raman spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, high-resolution scanning electron microscopy, Brunauer Emmett Teller (BET), and thermal analysis were employed to characterize the CNTs. The results showed that the amorphous catalyst induced more structural defects in CNTs than the crystalline catalyst did. The ratio of single wall to multiwall CNTs in prepared samples was about 0.31 and 7.3 for the crystalline and amorphous catalysts, respectively. Moreover, the BET results confirmed the higher adsorption capacity of the sample prepared by the amorphous catalyst due to its higher structural defects.