Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis of Carbon Nanotube Synthesis in a Chemical Vapour Deposition Reactor System

Abstract

Carbon nanotube synthesis requires time, effort and there is a need for a comprehensive and low cost way to characterize the flow in the furnace in order to understand how process parameters may affect CNTs formation. In this research, development of three-dimensional numerical models to elucidate the hydrodynamic behaviour and the percentage deposition of CNTs in a chemical vapour deposition (CVD) reactor was studied. Using computational fluid dynamics, constant and temperature dependent variables (piecewise linear) approximations were adopted for simulation of CNT deposition in a CVD reactor and there after validated with experimental data. Simulation results with temperature dependent variable approximate was observed to be more accurate because it provided less than 5% error when compared with experimental data. Effects of catalyst, carrier gas, and temperature on the simulation of carbon nanotube were also investigated using temperature dependent variables approximation. Catalyst, carrier gas, and temperature were found to have great influence on the velocity flow structures and therefore affect the deposition rate of carbon nanotubes. The optimum conditions obtained were; temperature (1073.15 K), argon velocity (0.002040 m/s), acetylene velocity (0.001099 m/s) and this gives 90.5 % deposition for simulation as compared to experimental yield of 92 %