Selective growth of chirality-enriched semiconducting carbon nanotubes by using bimetallic catalysts from salt precursors

Xiulan Zhao; Feng Yang; Junhan Chen; Li Ding; Xiyan Liu; Fengrui Yao; Meihui Li; Daqi Zhang; Zeyao Zhang; Xu Liu; Juan Yang; Kaihui Liu; Yan Li

doi:10.1039/c7nr07855b

Selective growth of chirality-enriched semiconducting carbon nanotubes by using bimetallic catalysts from salt precursors

Nanoscale. 2018 Apr 19;10(15):6922-6927. doi: 10.1039/c7nr07855b.

Authors

Xiulan Zhao¹, Feng Yang, Junhan Chen, Li Ding, Xiyan Liu, Fengrui Yao, Meihui Li, Daqi Zhang, Zeyao Zhang, Xu Liu, Juan Yang, Kaihui Liu, Yan Li

Affiliation

¹ Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Science, Key Laboratory for the Physics and Chemistry of Nanodevices, State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Materials Chemistry and Applications, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. yanli@pku.edu.cn.

PMID: 29594289
DOI: 10.1039/c7nr07855b

Abstract

Bimetallic catalysts play important roles in the selective growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). Using the simple salts (NH4)6W7O24·6H2O and Co(CH3COO)2·4H2O as precursors, tungsten-cobalt catalysts were prepared. The catalysts were composed of W6Co7 intermetallic compounds and tungsten-dispersed cobalt. With the increase of the W/Co ratio in the precursors, the content of W6Co7 was increased. Because the W6Co7 intermetallic compound can enable the chirality specified growth of SWNTs, the selectivity of the resulting SWNTs is improved at a higher W/Co ratio. At a W/Co ratio of 6 : 4 and under optimized chemical vapor deposition conditions, we realized the direct growth of semiconducting SWNTs with the purity of ∼96%, in which ∼62% are (14, 4) tubes. Using salts as precursors to prepare tungsten-cobalt bimetallic catalysts is flexible and convenient. This offers an efficient pathway for the large-scale preparation of chirality enriched semiconducting SWNTs.