Enhancing the pyrolysis of scrap rubber for carbon nanotubes/graphene production via chemical vapor deposition

Carbon nanostructures are considered nowadays as very important materials for both fundamental research and industrial applications because of their well-defined morphologies, which leads to excellent performance in various fields. This study presents the preparation of carbon nanostructures starting from cheap source represented by scrap rubber after pursuing optimized pyrolysis of scrap rubber at 500^oC as deduced from thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). The resulting cracked hydrocarbons from pyrolysis were collected over a well-designed Fe-Ni-Cu/MgO as catalyst via chemical vapor deposition (CVD), in which a growth temperature of 750^oC was undertaken for 60 min. A further attempt was elaborated where the scrap rubber was exposed to thermal aging at 90^oC for 14 days prior to CVD of its pyrolysis products in order to enhance the cracking process and increase the yield of the lighter hydrocarbons produced which leads to formation of well-defined carbon nanostructures. Characterizations on the produced carbon nanostructures were achieved using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Raman spectroscopy. The adsorption of methylene blue on the carbon nanostructures was also studied. The characterizations confirmed that the morphology of the resulting carbon nanostructures derived from scrap rubber without prior thermal aging composed of graphene sheets wrapping carbon nanotubes (CNTs-A). After thermal aging of scrap rubber prior to pyrolysis and CVD, the produced carbon nanostructures composed principally of CNTs (CNTs-B) in a well-defined form in higher yield. The Langmuir model appeared to be best-fitting the adsorption of MB on both samples. High monolayer adsorption capacity of 95 mg MB/g was accomplished in case of CNTs-A versus 60 mg MB/g in case of CNTs-B, respectively. Ultraviolet-Visible (UV-Vis.) spectroscopic study revealed that the presence of MB molecules on the surface of CNTs may enhance the electronic properties of the prepared samples.