Gravitational Effects on Carbon Nano‐Materials Synthesized by Arc in Water

Abstract

The "arc-in-liquid" method is a simple and inexpensive technique for the synthesis of carbon nanotubes and related nano-materials. In this paper, we report on the synthesis of carbon nanotubes by means of the arc-in-water method under microgravity and normal gravity conditions. The heat of convection and two-phase flow caused by the arc plasma are suppressed under microgravity, so the heat and fluid flow are stabilized under such conditions and a single huge bubble is generated around the electrodes. From the images captured during the experiment of the arc-in-liquid method, it can be observed that the bubble contained a layer of water vapor at the gas-liquid interface under microgravity conditions, and this layer blocked the carbon vapor reaching the liquid phase. Owing to this unique phenomenon, it was determined that the synthesis of carbon nanotubes by the arc-in-water method is strongly affected by gravity.

A review of plasma–liquid interactions for nanomaterial synthesis

“…Stimulated by the unique poperties and a great number of potential applications of novel carbon-related NMs, the simple method of discharge plasma in liquid was used in many experiments in last decades, by just modifying some part of the prototype, successes have been made in producing MWCNTs [280][281][282][283], carbon onions [52,[284][285][286], carbon nano horns [287,288], carbon NPs [117,118,[289][290][291][292][293][294][295], and graphene nanosheets [117,[296][297][298][299]. One example of these fabrications is presented in Fig.…”

Immunomodulatory properties of carbon nanotubes are able to compensate immune function dysregulation caused by microgravity conditions

“…Characterization and functionalization methods of the MWCNTs have been previously described by our group. 13 Kawanami et al focused on the effect of microgravity on CNT synthesis, 14 but no data are reported in the literature about the possible impact of microgravity on f-CNTs. We rst assessed by TEM and the Kaiser test that MWCNTs (OX-MWCNT-NH 3 + ) were not affected in their functionalization in microgravity.…”

Nickel Nanoparticles Formation from Solution Plasma Using Edge-Shielded Electrode

“…Plasma generation in a solution, rather than in a gas, has recently been proposed for the synthesis of nanoparticles; methods include the plasma jets [11], plasma-chemical reduction [12], microplasma reduction [13], influence of glow discharge [14], arc in water [15][16][17][18], arc discharge processes [19], solution plasma processing (SPP) [20][21][22][23], cathodic discharge [24,25], and laser-induced plasma [26]. Some of these methods successfully produced small (<10 nm) uniform nanoparticles.…”