Green Applications of Carbon Nanostructures produced by Plasma Techniques

The study of several types of plasma reactors used to obtain carbon nanostructures (CNS) is realized in the Laboratory of Plasma Applications. To obtain carbon nanotubes (CNT) thermal plasma was used and carbon nanofibers (CNF) were obtained with glow discharge. Optical emission spectroscopy was applied to correlate some plasma parameters with CNS growth. Several analytical techniques are used to study CNS obtained by both plasma techniques. In this work, we present results concerning the use of CNS as harmful gases traps and some results of a CNT based supercapacitor prototype are also depicted. Experimental results here detailed, show the capacity of CNF to absorb nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and, at less proportion, carbon dioxide (CO2). CNF films were obtained by electrophoretic deposition technique and by adding CNT ink; preliminary results showed a capacitance value of 2.69 F/g. This value remains still low compared to some supercapacitors, therefore additional work has to be done in order to improve the capacitance value