Formation of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Buckybooks, Graphene Nanosheets and Metal Decorated Graphene

The present study deals with the systematic study of the synthesis of various useful carbon nanostructures e.g. single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and graphene in large quantity by electrical arc discharge method by only varying the argon atmosphere pressure. The assynthesized nanostructures were characterized by different characterization techniques such as XRD, SEM, TEM, Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, Raman and FTIR spectroscopy. The SWCNT webs of length similar to 6 cm abundantly containing aligned SWCNTs have diameter of about 1.8 nm and form buckybook like structure. Few layer graphene (FLG) sheets were prepared by electric arc discharge of high purity graphite electrodes in a varying argon gas atmosphere (250 -500T). The largest areal extent of graphene (with lowest number of layer i.e. four) has been found at 350T argon pressure. A one step method is reported for the decoration of the graphene nanosheets with iron and nickel nanoparticles through arc discharge method.