The use of carbon nanotubes (CNTS) can help in energy research, bio-medicine and optoelectronics or optoelectronics.
Indian researchers have developed a new technology related to carbon nanotubes (CNTS). In this process, carbon nanotubes (CNTS) can be formed directly on glass substrate at a temperature of 750 °C. This technology can help in energy research , biomedical or photoelectronics or optoelectronics.
Due to the extraordinary properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTS), they are important for advancing modern technology. They can be used in a variety of fields including rechargeable batteries, electronics, aerospace, transparent electrodes, touch screens, supercapacitors and medicine.
However, conventional CNT fabrication methods require high temperatures and metal catalysts, iron-Fe, cobalt-Co and nickel-Ni. These catalysts may pose biocompatibility problems for biomedical applications.
Removing these catalysts from CNTs greatly increases the cost, leading to the need for cleaner, more sustainable CNT synthesis methods. Doing this becomes a new challenge in the field of nanotechnology.
Researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology Studies (IASST), an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, have developed a unique method to directly synthesize CNTs on glass substrates at a temperature of 750 °C.
The experiment is conducted using plasma coupled chemical vapor deposition technique (PECVD), where plasma is generated using a specially designed spiral-shaped fused hollow cathode source.
This eliminates the need for high temperatures for this process and also eliminates the need for a metal catalyst (transition metal catalyst). Additionally, this synthesis is carried out under atmospheric pressure, making it cost-effective compared to existing technologies in this field.
Many factors, including plasma characteristics, substrate composition, substrate temperature, and pre-plasma treatment of the substrate, heavily influence the growth of CNTs. Pre-plasma treatment of the glass substrate at the required high temperatures increases the surface area, allowing more significant amounts of its elements to appear directly on the surface.
Among all the elements within the glass, sodium (Na) stands out as the initial catalyst to initiate CNT growth and the analysis also confirms the same. It is also observed that sodium (Na) present in the developed CNTS can be easily removed by washing the sodium (Na) containing CNTS with de-ionized water.
This study discloses a novel atmospheric pressure PECVD process to synthesize CNTs, which enables the production of clean CNTs suitable for applications in energy research, biomedical fields, and photoelectronics. This discovery is an important step towards solving the challenges in CNT synthesis and advancing their use in various technological fields.
