Carbon nanostructures like fullerenes, graphene and nanotubes are of great
interest for the current research as well as for future industrial applications. The
reason for this is that the band gap of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) can
vary from zero to about 2 eV and hence their electrical conductivity can be the one
of a metal or the semiconductor. Moreover, the carbon nanotubes market is steadily
growing and thus effective and cheap solutions for the production of high quality
carbon nanotubes are needed. To the best of my knowledge, the main focus in the
current research lays on exploring the effective production methods for singlewalled
carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) because of their unique physical and chemical
properties and hence their potential electronic application.
This handout presents different synthesis methods like arc discharge (AD), laser
ablation, chemical vapour deposition (CVD) as well as some of the more recent
methods working with high pressure of the carbon monoxide or some unique
catalytic mixture. The production methods are explained and their advantages and
disadvantages examined. The actual production of carbon nanotubes contains the
following steps: synthesis, purification, inspection and packaging. Although this
handout concentrates on the synthesis, the other factors should not be completely
neglected as they contribute significantly to the production cost