Diameter Tuning of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes with Reaction Temperature Using a Co Monometallic Catalyst

Metal incorporated MCM-41 has proven to be a valuable template for the growth of narrow distributions of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT), producing samples with a wide range of different mean diameters. The ability to obtain narrow diameter distributions at different mean diameters is important for applications that require particular (n,m) nanotubes. Another advantage of this system is the ease of cleaning and low metal content as compared to bimetallic systems. In this Article, we show that Co-MCM-41 allows diameter tuning of SWNT produced over a broad diameter range (from 0.6-0.8 to 1.8-2.0 nm) by changing reaction temperature. The lower temperature reaction provides a robust means to obtain very small diameter SWNT. X-ray absorption experiments show that the change in SWNT diameter correlates with the change in metal particle size.