Chemical Vapor Deposition Essay

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Due to the varied properties and the scope of application which the CNTs possess, it is of paramount importance that CNTs are produced sufficiently at a competitive cost with the existing technology. The research over two decades, since the discovery of CNTs at Iijima’s Laboratory in 1991, has not helped in reduction of cost or production of CNTs of well-defined properties on a massive scale (Kumar, n.d.). This is mainly because of the complexity in the growth mechanism of CNTs. Extra ordinary properties and applications cannot be unleashed without the fundamental understanding of the growth mechanism of Carbon Nanotubes (Kumar, n.d.). There are several methods to produce Carbon Nanotubes in a laboratory setup. Some of widely used techniques include
1) Arc Discharge method
2) Laser Ablation
3) Chemical Vapor deposition (Ando, 2004)
But here we discuss only Chemical Vapor Deposition which helps for mass production of CNTs. The process discussed in this article is otherwise a mimicking of the Chemical Vapor Deposition.
Chemical Vapor Deposition is the most popular method for producing CNTs the process involved high temperature, hydrocarbon source such as methane which is decomposed in the presence of a metal catalyst (Ando, 2004). There are various types of Chemical Vapor deposition processes, but this method is recognized as Catalytic Chemical Vapor Deposition which is comparatively less expensive to Laser Ablation and Arc discharge methods (Ando, 2004). Chemical Vapor deposition is a flexible and lean way to produce Carbon Nano-tubes. It is very versatile process in which source hydrocarbon can be supplied in any form (Solid, Liquid or gas) and we can use substrates such as Ceramic bricks, cement, glass wool etc. The growth of C...

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...conventional way of Laboratory synthesis.
1) This process uses gases from the industrial exhaust which is let out into the atmosphere, which in turn makes profits out of pollution (NAIR & (IN), 2012).
2) The substrate coated catalyst can be used multiple times based on the exposure conditions and hence reusable (NAIR & (IN), 2012).
3) This process is completely carbon negative and earns carbon credits to the end user.
4) The demand for carbon Nanotubes asks for mass production and this is a very sustainable model as there are multiple industries everywhere.
5) The energy which is lost to the environment is used here to recover a wide application based product.
6) The raw Carbon Nanotubes recovered from this process can be directly incorporated in composites or rubber tires which increases the tensile strength and that is a direct application (NAIR & (IN), 2012)

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