An efficient fabrication of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes on flexible aluminum foils by catalyst-supported chemical vapor deposition.

An efficient and versatile growth of thin-layer carbon nanotubes on a flexible aluminum foil (for kitchen use) by catalyst-supported chemical vapor deposition is reported. The aluminum foil used in the present experiment is commercially available for kitchen use. The electron-beam vapor deposition and dip-coating have been used for preparing catalysts on the aluminum foil. Vertically aligned thin-layer CNTs with typical diameters of 2.5-6.0 nm and lengths up to 90 µm are obtained when ethanol is used in combination with Fe and Co catalyst particles at a growth temperature of around 650 °C under an Ar/H(2) gas flow. Thermo-gravimetric analyses together with HR-TEM observations indicate that the purity of the CNTs synthesized by the current technique is very high.