DISPERSION AND FLOATING PERCENTAGE AS A SIMPLE INDICATOR OF THE AMOUNT OF AMORPHOUS CARBONS IN CARBON NANOTUBE ARRAYS

Carbon nanotubes contain impurities and deamorphization is one of the methods of their purification. In this study, for the first time, a solution of piranha with a ratio of 3:1 (30 ml sulfuric acid + 10 ml hydrogen peroxide) as well as microwave irradiation with processing time of 30 minutes were used to remove amorphous carbon from the nanotube arrays. Ultrasonication was performed to disperse pristine and purified carbon nanotubes in water and centrifugation was performed to separate large particles. To assess the removal of amorphous carbon, new characterization methods such as dispersed percent and floating percent were used. It was observed that with increase in the ultrasonication time (from 0 to 50 minutes), the dispersed percentage of treated arrays was increased (about 47%), while the floating percentage of pure array decreased (about 20%). These results are ascribed to the removal of amorphous carbon. The results of the thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA) were in good agreement with the results obtained from the newly proposed characterization methods.