Synthesis of Carbon Nanostructures through the Chemical Vapor Deposition Technique: An Overview

Abstract

The boom that nanotechnology has had over the last 3 decades is undeniable. Carbon nanostructured forms are mainly responsible for this interest in nanomaterials, since historically they paved the way to the study of nanomaterials with the discovery of fullerenes in 1985 and carbon nanotubes in 1991. Although there are various techniques to produce nanomaterials, chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is particularly valuable as it allows the production of a great variety of carbon nanostructures, it is versatile, scalable, easy to implement and of a relatively low-cost. This review article highlights the importance of CVD and details its principles, conditions and operation parameters, as well as the main variations of this technique. Detailed conditions are described for the production of fullerenes, nano-onions, carbon nanotubes, nanospheres, graphene, and others, emphasizing the specific parameters for each synthesis.