Mass Spectroscopy of Chemical Reaction of 3d Metal Clusters Involved in Chemical Vapor Deposition Synthesis of Carbon Nanotubes

The chemical reactions of transition metal clusters in the gas phase have aroused considerable scientific interest and are also of critical scientific importance. For example, these reactions are involved in the synthesis of single-walled carbon nanotubes, which are considered ideal materials because of their outstanding properties. Alcohol catalytic chemical vapor deposition (ACCVD) is one of the best synthetic processes for carbon nanotubes (CNTs); however, even the initial growth mechanism is still unclear, unlike in other synthetic processes. In this study, we used a Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FT-ICR) mass spectrometer to determine the initial reactions of transition metal clusters ions (iron, cobalt, and nickel) that are typically adopted in the alcohol CVD process. Metal clusters with approximately 10–25 atoms each, generated by a pulsed laser ablation system in a supersonic-expansion cluster beam source, were directly carried into the FT-ICR cell. Subsequently, ethanol was introduced into the ICR cell. We observed two different results: one was simple chemisorption observed in iron cluster and the other was dehydrogenated chemisorption observed in nickel cluster; however, cobalt clusters exhibited both patterns, and sequential reaction was observed. Furthermore, dehydrogenation process of ethanol molecule on cobalt cluster is fully described from isotope-labeled experiments.