II International Symposium on Carbon for Catalysis ABSTRACTS

GROWTH OF CARBON NANOFIBERS ON METALLIC FILTERS
PP-<strong>II</strong>-26
Tribolet P., Kiwi-Minsker L.
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), SB-ISIC-LGRC, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
e-mail: pascal.tribolet@epfl.ch
During the last decade, carbon nanofibers (CNF) have attracted a lot of interest due to
their outstanding mechanical, thermal and electrical properties [1]. The easiest way to grow
up carbon nanofibers is by catalytic decomposition of a gaseous carbon precursor. Up to now,
the majority of CNF produced by this method needs supported metal catalysts or metals in a
powder form. It requires either a step of metal deposition on a support or leads to unsupported
CNF, which can be very difficult to handle.
We propose to use metallic filters as supports and catalysts for the carbon nanofibers
synthesis. With an adequate metallic composition, it is possible to grow up CNF directly on
the filter. This leads to a structured composite material consisting of a filter where the metal
wires are surrounded by a layer of CNF. This composite has a graphitic external surface,
coming from the nature of the CNF and a high specific surface area due to the small diameter
of the nanofibers [2]. Being a combination of two electro- and thermo-conductive compounds,
the resulting material keeps these properties. It is suitable for various applications, like a
catalytic support, a reinforcement material, or a catalytic electrode.
Figure 1: Optical and SEM pictures of carbon nanofibers grown on sintered Inconel fiber filter by catalytic
decomposition of C 2 H 6 . Magnitude: A. 40x, B. 300x, C. 3000x, D. 20000x.
We report hereby the one-step synthesis of a novel composite material consisting of
CNF grown on Inconel sintered metal fibers filters (CNF/SMFInconel, Figure 1). The SMF
filters have a thickness of 490 μm and consist of fibers of 8 μm diameter. They possess an
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