AI Chat Paper
Note: Please note that the following content is generated by AMiner AI. SciOpen does not take any responsibility related to this content.
{{lang === 'zh_CN' ? '文章概述' : 'Summary'}}
{{lang === 'en_US' ? '中' : 'Eng'}}
Chat more with AI
Powered by AMiner. Clicking this button will take you away from SciOpen.
Home Nano Research Article
Article Link
Cite
EndNote(RIS) BibTeX
Collect
Submit Manuscript
Show Outline
Outline
Show full outline
Hide outline
Outline
Show full outline
Hide outline
Research Article

Correlating the fluctuated growth of carbon nanotubes with catalyst evolution by atmospheric-pressure environmental transmission electron microscopy

Rui-Hong Xie1,2, Lili Zhang1,2( ), Ruixue Ma1,2, Xin-Yu Jiao1,2, Dai-Ming Tang3, Chang Liu1,2( ), Hui-Ming Cheng1,4
Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research (IMR), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China
School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
Research Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute of Technology for Carbon Neutrality, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China
Show Author Information

Graphical Abstract

The ultrafine nanofibrous polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) films with great robustness, breathability, chemical-resistance, and water-proofness were achieved by innovative in-situ fibrillation strategy. The nanofibrous microstructure facilitates the electrical output of different types of triboelectric nanogenerators and improves the wearing performance.

Abstract

Rate-controlled growth of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and catalyst design are considered efficient ways for the preparation of CNTs with specific structures and properties. However, due to the difficulties in capturing the growth process of the CNTs with tiny size under a complex growth environment, the growth kinetics of CNTs and their correlation with the catalyst seed have been seldom revealed. Here, we investigated the growth process of CNTs from Ni nanoparticles (NPs) in real-time under atmospheric pressure using transmission electron microscopy equipped with a closed gas cell. It was found that the growth rates of CNTs fluctuated, and a phase transition from Ni3C to Ni, and a reshaping of the catalyst NPs occurred during the growth process. We demonstrated that CNTs dynamically interacted with the connected catalyst NPs and the fluctuated growth rates of CNTs were correlated with the structure change of catalyst NPs. The origin of the growth rate fluctuation is attributed to the change of carbon concentration gradient in catalyst NPs.

Keywords

carbon nanotubegrowth ratenickel catalystin situ transmission electron microscopy

Electronic Supplementary Material

Video
12274_2023_6174_MOESM1_ESM.avi
12274_2023_6174_MOESM2_ESM.mov
12274_2023_6174_MOESM3_ESM.mov
Download File(s)
12274_2023_6174_MOESM4_ESM.pdf (10.7 MB)

References

[1]

Treacy, M. M. J.; Ebbesen, T. W.; Gibson, J. M. Exceptionally high Young's modulus observed for individual carbon nanotubes. Nature 1996, 381, 678–680.
Crossref Google Scholar
[2]

Berber, S.; Kwon, Y. K.; Tománek, D. Unusually high thermal conductivity of carbon nanotubes. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2000, 84, 4613–4616.
Crossref Google Scholar
[3]

Javey, A.; Guo, J.; Wang, Q.; Lundstrom, M.; Dai, H. J. Ballistic carbon nanotube field-effect transistors. Nature 2003, 424, 654–657.
Crossref Google Scholar
[4]

Seo, K.; Park, K. A.; Kim, C.; Han, S.; Kim, B.; Lee, Y. H. Chirality- and diameter-dependent reactivity of NO2 on carbon nanotube walls. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2005, 127, 15724–15729.
Crossref Google Scholar
[5]

Baughman, R. H.; Zakhidov, A. A.; de Heer, W. A. Carbon nanotubes-the route toward applications. Science 2002, 297, 787–792.
Crossref Google Scholar
[6]

De Volder, M. F. L.; Tawfick, S. H.; Baughman, R. H.; Hart, A. J. Carbon nanotubes: Present and future commercial applications. Science 2013, 339, 535–539.
Crossref Google Scholar
[7]

Tang, D. M.; Erohin, S. V.; Kvashnin, D. G.; Demin, V. A.; Cretu, O.; Jiang, S.; Zhang, L. L.; Hou, P. X.; Chen, G. H.; Futaba, D. N. et al. Semiconductor nanochannels in metallic carbon nanotubes by thermomechanical chirality alteration. Science 2021, 374, 1616–1620.
Crossref Google Scholar
[8]

Zhang, S. C.; Kang, L. X.; Wang, X.; Tong, L. M.; Yang, L. W.; Wang, Z. Q.; Qi, K.; Deng, S. B.; Li, Q. W.; Bai, X. D. et al. Arrays of horizontal carbon nanotubes of controlled chirality grown using designed catalysts. Nature 2017, 543, 234–238.
Crossref Google Scholar
[9]

Yang, F.; Wang, X.; Si, J.; Zhao, X. L.; Qi, K.; Jin, C. H.; Zhang, Z. Y.; Li, M. H.; Zhang, D. Q.; Yang, J. et al. Water-assisted preparation of high-purity semiconducting (14, 4) carbon nanotubes. ACS Nano 2017, 11, 186–193.
Crossref Google Scholar
[10]

Yang, F.; Wang, X.; Zhang, D. Q.; Yang, J.; Luo, D.; Xu, Z. W.; Wei, J. K.; Wang, J. Q.; Xu, Z.; Peng, F. et al. Chirality-specific growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes on solid alloy catalysts. Nature 2014, 510, 522–524.
Crossref Google Scholar
[11]

Otsuka, K.; Ishimaru, R.; Kobayashi, A.; Inoue, T.; Xiang, R.; Chiashi, S.; Kato, Y. K.; Maruyama, S. Universal map of gas-dependent kinetic selectivity in carbon nanotube growth. ACS Nano 2022, 16, 5627–5635.
Crossref Google Scholar
[12]

Zhang, S. C.; Wang, X.; Yao, F. R.; He, M. S.; Lin, D. W.; Ma, H.; Sun, Y. Y.; Zhao, Q. C.; Liu, K. H.; Ding, F. et al. Controllable growth of (n, n−1) family of semiconducting carbon nanotubes. Chem 2019, 5, 1182–1193.
Crossref Google Scholar
[13]

Wang, Y.; Qiu, L.; Zhang, L. L.; Tang, D. M.; Ma, R. X.; Ren, C. L.; Ding, F.; Liu, C.; Cheng, H. M. Growth mechanism of carbon nanotubes from Co-W-C alloy catalyst revealed by atmospheric environmental transmission electron microscopy. Sci. Adv. 2022, 8, eabo5686.
Crossref Google Scholar
[14]

Ma, R. X.; Qiu, L.; Zhang, L. L.; Tang, D. M.; Wang, Y.; Zhang, B. S.; Ding, F.; Liu, C.; Cheng, H. M. Nucleation of single-wall carbon nanotubes from faceted Pt catalyst particles revealed by in situ transmission electron microscopy. ACS Nano 2022, 16, 16574–16583.
Crossref Google Scholar
[15]

Bahri, M.; Dembélé, K.; Sassoye, C.; Debecker, D. P.; Moldovan, S.; Gay, A. S.; Hirlimann, C.; Sanchez, C.; Ersen, O. In situ insight into the unconventional ruthenium catalyzed growth of carbon nanostructures. Nanoscale 2018, 10, 14957–14965.
Crossref Google Scholar
[16]

He, M. S.; Wang, X.; Zhang, S. C.; Jiang, H.; Cavalca, F.; Cui, H. Z.; Wagner, J. B.; Hansen, T. W.; Kauppinen, E.; Zhang, J. et al. Growth kinetics of single-walled carbon nanotubes with a (2n, n) chirality selection. Sci. Adv. 2019, 5, eaav9668.
Crossref Google Scholar
[17]

He, M. S.; Jiang, H.; Kauppinen, E. I.; Lehtonen, J. Diameter and chiral angle distribution dependencies on the carbon precursors in surface-grown single-walled carbon nanotubes. Nanoscale 2012, 4, 7394–7398.
Crossref Google Scholar
[18]

Zhang, L. L.; He, M. S.; Hansen, T. W.; Kling, J.; Jiang, H.; Kauppinen, E. I.; Loiseau, A.; Wagner, J. B. Growth termination and multiple nucleation of single-wall carbon nanotubes evidenced by in situ transmission electron microscopy. ACS Nano 2017, 11, 4483–4493.
Crossref Google Scholar
[19]

Zhang, F.; Sun, J.; Zheng, Y. G.; Hou, P. X.; Liu, C.; Cheng, M.; Li, X.; Cheng, H. M.; Chen, Z. The importance of H2 in the controlled growth of semiconducting single-wall carbon nanotubes. J. Mater. Sci. Technol. 2020, 54, 105–111.
Crossref Google Scholar
[20]
Zhao, H. F.; Zhu, Y. C.; Ye, H. Y.; He, Y.; Li, H.; Sun, Y. F.; Yang, F.; Wang, R. M. Atomic-scale structure dynamics of nanocrystals revealed by in situ and environmental transmission electron microscopy. Adv. Mater., in press, DOI: 10.1002/adma.202206911.
Crossref
[21]

Jiang, Y.; Zhang, Z. F.; Yuan, W. T.; Zhang, X.; Wang, Y.; Zhang, Z. Recent advances in gas-involved in situ studies via transmission electron microscopy. Nano Res. 2018, 11, 42–67.
Crossref Google Scholar
[22]

Takeda, S.; Kuwauchi, Y.; Yoshida, H. Environmental transmission electron microscopy for catalyst materials using a spherical aberration corrector. Ultramicroscopy 2015, 151, 178–190.
Crossref Google Scholar
[23]

Picher, M.; Lin, P. A.; Gomez-Ballesteros, J. L.; Balbuena, P. B.; Sharma, R. Nucleation of graphene and its conversion to single-walled carbon nanotubes. Nano Lett. 2014, 14, 6104–6108.
Crossref Google Scholar
[24]

Zhu, H. W.; Suenaga, K.; Hashimoto, A.; Urita, K.; Hata, K.; Iijima, S. Atomic-resolution imaging of the nucleation points of single-walled carbon nanotubes. Small 2005, 1, 1180–1183.
Crossref Google Scholar
[25]

Zakharov, D.; Zemlyanov, D.; Mane, A.; Elam, J.; Ribeiro, F.; Stach, E. Real time ETEM studies of the nucleation and growth of carbon nanotubes utilizing Fe/Pt catalyst on a spherical Al2O3 support. Microsc. Microanal. 2011, 17, 1526–1527.
Crossref Google Scholar
[26]

Yang, F.; Zhao, H. F.; Wang, W.; Liu, Q. D.; Liu, X.; Hu, Y. C.; Zhang, X. R.; Zhu, S.; He, D. S.; Xu, Y. Y. et al. Carbon-involved near-surface evolution of cobalt nanocatalysts: An in situ study. CCS Chem. 2021, 3, 154–167.
Crossref Google Scholar
[27]

Silvearv, F.; Larsson, P.; Jones, S. L. T.; Ahuja, R.; Larsson, J. A. Establishing the most favorable metal-carbon bond strength for carbon nanotube catalysts. J. Mater. Chem. C 2015, 3, 3422–3427.
Crossref Google Scholar
[28]

Lin, M.; Tan, J. P. Y.; Boothroyd, C.; Loh, K. P.; Tok, E. S.; Foo, Y. L. Dynamical observation of bamboo-like carbon nanotube growth. Nano Lett. 2007, 7, 2234–2238.
Crossref Google Scholar
[29]

Helveg, S.; López-Cartes, C.; Sehested, J.; Hansen, P. L.; Clausen, B. S.; Rostrup-Nielsen, J. R.; Abild-Pedersen, F.; Nørskov, J. K. Atomic-scale imaging of carbon nanofibre growth. Nature 2004, 427, 426–429.
Crossref Google Scholar
[30]

Hofmann, S.; Blume, R.; Wirth, C. T.; Cantoro, M.; Sharma, R.; Ducati, C.; Hävecker, M.; Zafeiratos, S.; Schnoerch, P.; Oestereich, A. et al. State of transition metal catalysts during carbon nanotube growth. J. Phys. Chem. C 2009, 113, 1648–1656.
Crossref Google Scholar
[31]

Lyu, Y. Q.; Wang, P.; Liu, D. D.; Zhang, F.; Senftle, T. P.; Zhang, G. H.; Zhang, Z. Y.; Wang, J. M.; Liu, W. Tracing the active phase and dynamics for carbon nanofiber growth on nickel catalyst using environmental transmission electron microscopy. Small Methods 2022, 6, 2200235.
Crossref Google Scholar
[32]

Sharma, R.; Chee, S. W.; Herzing, A.; Miranda, R.; Rez, P. Evaluation of the role of Au in improving catalytic activity of Ni nanoparticles for the formation of one-dimensional carbon nanostructures. Nano Lett. 2011, 11, 2464–2471.
Crossref Google Scholar
[33]

Wang, Y.; Qiu, L.; Zhang, L. L.; Tang, D. M.; Ma, R. X.; Wang, Y. Z.; Zhang, B. S.; Ding, F.; Liu, C.; Cheng, H. M. Precise identification of the active phase of cobalt catalyst for carbon nanotube growth by in situ transmission electron microscopy. ACS Nano 2020, 14, 16823–16831.
Crossref Google Scholar
[34]

Mazzucco, S.; Wang, Y.; Tanase, M.; Picher, M.; Li, K.; Wu, Z. J.; Irle, S.; Sharma, R. Direct evidence of active and inactive phases of Fe catalyst nanoparticles for carbon nanotube formation. J. Catal. 2014, 319, 54–60.
Crossref Google Scholar
[35]

Rao, R.; Sharma, R.; Abild-Pedersen, F.; Nørskov, J. K.; Harutyunyan, A. R. Insights into carbon nanotube nucleation: Cap formation governed by catalyst interfacial step flow. Sci. Rep. 2014, 4, 6510.
Crossref Google Scholar
[36]
Sharma, R.; Rez, P.; Treacy, M. M. J.; Stuart, S. J. In situ observation of the growth mechanisms of carbon nanotubes under diverse reaction conditions. Microscopy 2005, 54, 231–237.
Crossref
[37]

Lin, M.; Tan, J. P. Y.; Boothroyd, C.; Loh, K. P.; Tok, E. S.; Foo, Y. L. Direct observation of single-walled carbon nanotube growth at the atomistic scale. Nano Lett. 2006, 6, 449–452.
Crossref Google Scholar
[38]

Sharma, R.; Rez, P.; Brown, M.; Du, G. H.; Treacy, M. M. J. Dynamic observations of the effect of pressure and temperature conditions on the selective synthesis of carbon nanotubes. Nanotechnology 2007, 18, 125602.
Crossref Google Scholar
[39]

Ding, F.; Bolton, K. The importance of supersaturated carbon concentration and its distribution in catalytic particles for single-walled carbon nanotube nucleation. Nanotechnology 2006, 17, 543–548.
Crossref Google Scholar
[40]

Kohigashi, Y.; Yoshida, H.; Homma, Y.; Takeda, S. Structurally inhomogeneous nanoparticulate catalysts in cobalt-catalyzed carbon nanotube growth. Appl. Phys. Lett. 2014, 105, 073108.
Crossref Google Scholar
[41]

Yoshida, H.; Takeda, S.; Uchiyama, T.; Kohno, H.; Homma, Y. Atomic-scale in situ observation of carbon nanotube growth from solid state iron carbide nanoparticles. Nano Lett. 2008, 8, 2082–2086.
Crossref Google Scholar
[42]

Schaper, A. K.; Hou, H. Q.; Greiner, A.; Phillipp, F. The role of iron carbide in multiwalled carbon nanotube growth. J. Catal. 2004, 222, 250–254.
Crossref Google Scholar
[43]
Hofmann, S.; Sharma, R.; Ducati, C.; Du, G. H.; Mattevi, C.; Cepek, C.; Cantoro, M.; Pisana, S.; Parvez, A.; Cervantes-Sodi, F. et al. In situ observations of catalyst dynamics during surface-bound carbon nanotube nucleation. Nano Lett. 2007, 7, 602–608.
Crossref
[44]

Anton, R. In situ transmission electron microscopy study of the growth of Ni nanoparticles on amorphous carbon and of the graphitization of the support in the presence of hydrogen. J. Mater. Res. 2005, 20, 1837–1843.
Crossref Google Scholar
[45]

Leng, Y. H.; Xie, L.; Liao, F. H.; Zheng, J.; Li, X. G. Kinetic and thermodynamics studies on the decompositions of Ni3C in different atmospheres. Thermochim. Acta 2008, 473, 14–18.
Crossref Google Scholar
[46]

Itoh, T.; Sinclair, R. Nickel mediated transformation of amorphous carbon to graphite. MRS Online Proc. Lib. 1994, 349, 31–36.
Crossref Google Scholar
[47]

Lin, P. A.; Gomez-Ballesteros, J. L.; Burgos, J. C.; Balbuena, P. B.; Natarajan, B.; Sharma, R. Direct evidence of atomic-scale structural fluctuations in catalyst nanoparticles. J. Catal. 2017, 349, 149–155.
Crossref Google Scholar
[48]

Huang, X.; Farra, R.; Schlögl, R.; Willinger, M. G. Growth and termination dynamics of multiwalled carbon nanotubes at near ambient pressure: An in situ transmission electron microscopy study. Nano Lett. 2019, 19, 5380–5387.
Crossref Google Scholar
[49]

Gamalski, A.; Moore, E. S.; Treacy, M. M. J.; Sharma, R.; Rez, P. Diffusion-gradient-induced length instabilities in the catalytic growth of carbon nanotubes. Appl. Phys. Lett. 2009, 95, 233109.
Crossref Google Scholar
[50]

Tang, X.; Xie, Z. Y.; Yin, T.; Wang, J. W.; Yang, P. P.; Huang, Q. Z. Classical molecular dynamics simulations of carbon nanofiber nucleation: The effect of carbon concentration in Ni carbide. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 2013, 15, 16314–16320.
Crossref Google Scholar
[51]

He, Z. B.; Maurice, J. L.; Lee, C. S.; Cojocaru, C. S.; Pribat, D. Nickel catalyst faceting in plasma-enhanced direct current chemical vapor deposition of carbon nanofibers. Arabian J. Sci. Eng. Sec. C 2010, 35, 1120–1928.
Google Scholar
[52]

Jourdain, V.; Bichara, C. Current understanding of the growth of carbon nanotubes in catalytic chemical vapour deposition. Carbon 2013, 58, 2–39.
Crossref Google Scholar
[53]

Pigos, E.; Penev, E. S.; Ribas, M. A.; Sharma, R.; Yakobson, B. I.; Harutyunyan, A. R. Carbon nanotube nucleation driven by catalyst morphology dynamics. ACS Nano 2011, 5, 10096–10101.
Crossref Google Scholar
[54]

Baker, R. T. K.; Barber, M. A.; Harris, P. S.; Feates, F. S.; Waite, R. J. Nucleation and growth of carbon deposits from the nickel catalyzed decomposition of acetylene. J. Catal. 1972, 26, 51–62.
Crossref Google Scholar
[55]

Goldberg, D.; Belton, G. R. The diffusion of carbon in iron-carbon alloys at 1560 °C. Metall. Trans. 1974, 5, 1643–1648.
Crossref Google Scholar
[56]

Zhu, Y. A.; Dai, Y. C.; Chen, D.; Yuan, W. K. First-principles study of carbon diffusion in bulk nickel during the growth of fishbone-type carbon nanofibers. Carbon 2007, 45, 21–27.
Crossref Google Scholar
Nano Research
Volume 16 Issue 11,
November 2023
Pages 12781-12787
DOI: 10.1007/s12274-023-6174-0
Cite this article:
Xie R-H, Zhang L, Ma R, et al. Correlating the fluctuated growth of carbon nanotubes with catalyst evolution by atmospheric-pressure environmental transmission electron microscopy. Nano Research, 2023, 16(11): 12781-12787. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-6174-0
Topics:
Carbon nanotubes

995

Views

1

Crossref

1

Web of Science

1

Scopus

0

CSCD

Altmetrics
Received: 13 July 2023
Revised: 07 September 2023
Accepted: 07 September 2023
Published: 28 October 2023
© Tsinghua University Press 2023
Return