Growth of carbon nanotubes on natural organic precursors by chemical vapor deposition

Some plant tissues are rich in transition metal Fe. So, we explored the use of black jews-ear fungus and black sesame seeds as catalyst precursors to prepare carbon nanotubes by chemical vapor deposition. Each catalyst particle arises from the metal content of a single cell of the precursor, hence the distribution of catalyst particles is uniform. Their size and composition are almost identical. Carbon nanotube arrays can grow when black sesame seeds are used as catalyst precursors. Carbon nanotubes with diameters 80 nm and length greater than 100 mu m can grow when black jews-ear fungus are used. Crown Copyright (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.