Recent Progress in Development of Large Scale Synthesis of Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes of the Frontier Carbon Projects

Motoo Yumura, Satoshi Ohshima, Hiroki Ago and Kunio Uchida

National Institute of Materials and Chemical Research, Tsukuba, Japan

Hitoshi Inoue,Toshiki Komatsu

Japan Fine Ceramics Center, Nagoya, 456-0023, Japan

Abstract

We have been developing the mass production methods of multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWNT). We have developed a method to produce several 10 grams of MWNT per day by continuous arc method which has the higher productivity compared with the arc discharge method used from 1996. Furthermore, aiming at proceeding research and development for the MWNT as the material for industry, we started to develop the new production method to produce several kg of the MWNT. We have developed a chemical synthesis method of MWNT by using low boiling point hydrocarbon as the raw material and ultra fine metal particle as the catalyst. We used ultra fine metal particle as a catalyst metal and benzene as a carbon source. Advantages of this method are selective production of MWNT and cost of mass production will be low. It is quite easy for this method to scale up the MWNT production. We have developed the pilot plant which is capable to produce several kg of MWNT per day.

In 1999, We started to construct the large scale experimental continuous reactor in cooperation with Showa Denko Co. Ltd. as the Frontier Carbon Technology Project of Ministry of International Trading and Industry (MITI), and we succeeded in producing 200g of carbon nanotube per hour. Now, we are carrying out the experiment using this plant (Figure 1) to make sure its possibility for industrial utilization and we are developing several industrial applications of MWNT.

This work is supported by the Frontier Carbon Technology Project of the MITI.

Keywords: carbon nanotubes, mass production, synthesis

Figure 1. The pilot plant for mass production of MWNT