Growth of Carbon Nano-Tubes from Electric-Arc-Furnace Dust Directly

Abstract

A green process has been successfully developed to mass-produce carbon nano-tubes (CNTs) using electric-arc-furnace (EAF) dusts as the catalyst. The CNTs were prepared by a thermal CVD process with the gas mixture acetylene and nitrogen flown directly on the EAF dust that was firstly treated by a reduction period. Preliminary experimental results illustrated that CNTs were easily synthesized in large quantity and in curly shapes. The characteristics of as-grown CNTs were evaluated by transmission electron microscopy and Raman spectrometry to be of good graphitic structure. This production method is extremely meaningful both environmentally and industry-wise.