Issue 37, 2012
From the journal:

Journal of Materials Chemistry

Heterogeneous catalysis model of growth mechanisms of carbon nanotubes, graphene and silicon nanowires

John Robertson*a  

* Corresponding authors

a Engineering Dept., Cambridge University, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK
E-mail: jr@eng.cam.ac.uk

Abstract

The catalytic chemical vapour deposition of carbon nanotubes on transition metal catalysts from hydrocarbons is analysed in terms of concepts of heterogeneous catalysis, which leads to a ‘volcano plot’ of the catalyst efficiency vs. the metal d orbital energy. In this plot, noble metals are inefficient because they dissociate the feedstock poorly, the early transition metals are inefficient because their surface sites become blocked by absorbed carbon and they do not release the nanotube, while the optimum catalyst dissociates the feedstock readily and releases the nanotube. The model is extended to explain why graphene CVD works best with non-optimum catalysts. For silicon nanowires, the rather high stability of metal silicides limits the nanowire growth rates and may explain why there are few alternatives to gold as a catalyst.

Graphical abstract: Heterogeneous catalysis model of growth mechanisms of carbon nanotubes, graphene and silicon nanowires

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/C2JM33732K
Article type
Paper
Submitted
11 Jun 2012
Accepted
10 Aug 2012
First published
13 Aug 2012

J. Mater. Chem., 2012,22, 19858-19862

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Heterogeneous catalysis model of growth mechanisms of carbon nanotubes, graphene and silicon nanowires

J. Robertson, J. Mater. Chem., 2012, 22, 19858 DOI: 10.1039/C2JM33732K

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