Kinetics-Controlled Growth of Metallic Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes from CoRe<sub><i>x</i></sub> Nanoparticles.

Li, Xin; Zhang, Feng; Zhang, Lili; Ji, Zhong-Hai; Zhao, Yi-Ming; Xu, Zi-Wei; Wang, Yang; Hou, Peng-Xiang et al. · ACS Nano · 2022

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

The controlled growth of metallic single-wall carbon nanotubes (m-SWCNTs) is very important for the fabrication of high-performance interconnecting wires, transparent conductive electrodes, light and conductive fibers, <i>etc</i>. However, it has been extremely difficult to synthesize m-SWCNTs due to their lower abundance and higher chemical reactivity than semiconducting SWCNTs (s-SWCNTs). Here, we report the kinetically controlled growth of m-SWCNTs by manipulating their binding energy with the catalyst and promoting their growth rate. We prepared CoRe<sub>4</sub> nanoparticles with a hexagonal close-packed structure and an average size of ∼2.3 nm, which have a lower binding energy with m-SWCNTs than with s-SWCNTs. The selective growth of m-SWCNTs from the CoRe<sub>4</sub> catalyst was achieved by using a low concentration of carbon source feed at a relative low temperature of 760 °C. The m-SWCNTs had a narrow diameter distribution of 1.1 ± 0.3 nm, and their content was over 80%.