Production of Carbon Nanotubes from Chemical Vapor Deposition of Methane in a Continuous Rotary Reactor System

The commonly used batch-wise chemical vapor deposition (CVD) system has a low production rate for carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and it is cost ineffective from the economic point of view. In this research, a new horizontally oriented rotary reactor system that enables a continuous production of CNTs was designed and built. The experimental findings show that the rate of carbon deposition by using the rotary reactor was approximately 130 g/h and about 3 kg/day. The carbon content of the carbon deposits as determined from thermogravimetric analysis was 81.7% and carbon yield 446.4%. The as-produced carbon deposits were composed mainly of multiwalled CNTs with a diameter distribution of 12.8 +/- 4.2 nm (mean diameter +/- standard deviation).