Natural Mineral-marine Manganese Nodule as a Novel Catalyst for the Synthesis of Carbon Nanotubes

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes were fabricated by the pyrolysis of acetylene with naturally occurring marine manganese nodules as a novel catalyst at an elevated temperature.The nanotube product was examined by transmission electron microscopy.The method is expected to be the simplest one to synthesize carbon nanotubes due to unnecessary synthesis of catalyst.