OATAO is an open access repository that collects the work of Toulouse researchers and makes it freely available over the web where possible.
A B S T R A C TMulti-walled carbon nanotubes tangled in easy-to-fluidize porous balls have been decorated by pure copper nanoparticles using a pre-industrial fluidized bed chemical vapor deposition process. Copper (II) acetylacetonate Cu(acac) 2 was used as precursor. The low precursor volatility led to low deposition rates, responsible for a nonuniformity of the deposit both on the MWCNT balls and from the outer part to the center of the balls. An oxidative pre-treatment of the MWCNTs allowed to increase slightly the deposit weight and uniformity, by creating new nucleation sites on the nanotube surface. It also allowed decreasing the size of Cu nanoparticles by a factor of ten. A decrease of the deposition temperature increased more markedly the deposit weight, by probably favoring the formation of gaseous reactive intermediate species more reactive on the oxidized nanotube surface. A more efficient precursor delivery system would allow reaching higher deposition rates and much more uniform deposits, making possible an industrial production of metallized carbon nanotubes.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.