SYNTHESIS OF CATALYST-FREE AND TEMPERATURE CONTROLLED MORPHOLOGIES OF CARBON NANOSTRUCTURES USING BOTANICAL HYDROCARBON: CASTOR OIL

Abstract

Castor oil (combination of fatty acids) precursor containing hydrocarbon with less amount of oxygen is used first time for synthesis of different carbon nanostructures (i.e., agglomerated carbon nanoparticles, carbon nanobeads and carbon tubular structure). The agglomerated carbon nanoparticles, carbon nanobeads and carbon tubular structure were synthesized by applying CVD method at different temperature using castor oil as new carbon precursor without any catalyst. The synthesis of carbon nanostructure is free from additional catalyst as this hydrocarbon (castor oil) is cheap with abundant sources of carbon. The effect of pyrolysis temperatures on the size, quality and quantity of the synthesized carbon shape were investigated. Interestingly, the morphology of the carbon nanostructures can be controlled in shape from agglomerated carbon nanoparticle to nanobeads to carbon tubular structure just by increasing the temperature from 750°C to 800°C to 850°C, respectively. These nanobeads are chains of uniform size of graphitized carbon spheres. These chains comprised individual carbon particles size of ~ 450 nm. The products were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), Raman spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR).