Carbon Nanotubes from Camphor: An Environment-Friendly Nanotechnology

High-purity carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are produced by chemical vapour deposition of camphor, an environment-friendly hydrocarbon. In a small CVD reactor (1-m long and 26mm wide), CVD of 3 g camphor at 650°C for 1 hour yields ~1.62 g MWNTs of diameter ~10 nm with an as-grown purity over 88%; that is, camphor-to-CNT production efficiency is 50%. This is the highest efficiency ever achieved from any material by any method. Moreover, camphor-based CNT synthesis technique stands fairly good against the 12-principle protocol of green chemistry.