Growth and characterization of multi-walled carbon nanotubes using Ni-MCM41 mesoporous catalyst and their application as adsorbent

Carbon nanotubes (cnts) are employed by chemical vapour deposition (cvd) method using ni-mcm41 mesoporous as a catalyst. ni-mcm41 mesoporous catalysts are synthesised by nickel's incorporation into the mcm41 framework through hydrothermal method,using sodium metasilicate as silica source and cetyltrimethylammonium bromide as a template. the powder x-ray diffraction (xrd) and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ftir) results confirmed the synthesised cnts grown on the ni-mcm41 catalyst are multi-walled carbon nanotubes (mwnts). scanning electron microscopy micrograph of synthesised cnts showed the hairlike structure with the diameter in between 2-5 nm and a few hundred nanometres in length. the synthesised cnts are tested as an adsorbent for methyl orange removal in aqueous solution. results show that 98 % of methyl orange is removed by synthesised cnts after 1 hour of reaction and comparable to commercial mwnts at 100 %. this study shows that the synthesised cnts have a great potential to be used as an adsorbent for methyl orange removal. © 2017 penerbit umt.