Re: Add Water for Better Nanotubes

jeremy.barton_at_gmail.com
Date: 11/28/04 

Date: 28 Nov 2004 17:29:59 GMT

manofsan@yahoo.com (sanman) wrote in message
news:<cnm31t01s6s@enews1.newsguy.com>...
> Apparently, the addition of water may help in the formation of dense
> nanotube carpets/forrests:
>
> http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.aspx?articleID=2004-11-18-3
>
> The water seems to break down carbon that might normally clog the
> catalyst, during chemical vapor deposition.
>
> An excerpt:
>
> "Water-stimulated enhanced catalytic activity results in massive
> growth of superdense and vertically aligned nanotube forests with
> heights up to 2.5 millimeters that can be easily separated from the
> catalysts, providing nanotube material with carbon purity above
> 99.98%," say the researchers. "Moreover, patterned, highly organized
> intrinsic nanotube structures were successfully fabricated. The
> water-assisted synthesis method addresses many critical problems that
> currently plague carbon nanotube synthesis."
>
> Hmm, sounds pretty neat, but will it work under high gas flow rates?

How high? The article in question used 1000 sccm total flow rate in a
one inch furnace. The tubes grew at ~4 microns per second up to at
least a couple millimeters long, and apparently the same catalyst
patches could be reused if the grown tubes were scraped off with a
razor blade, strongly indicating a base-growth mechanism.
Additionally, the tubes apparently don't aggregate as much as in
normal high volume nanotube growth. IF the technique is as good as it
seems, it should be commercialized very soon.

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