Synthesis of Cu catalyzed chemical vapor deposition grown Cu-CNFs on less porous graphite powder

• Cu-CNF/graphite composite was synthesized by catalytic chemical vapor deposition. • The material was characterized using analytical and spectroscopic techniques. • The growth of CNFs followed tip growth mechanism. Carbon nanomaterials are the nanostructures that can have an aspect ratio greater than 1,000,000. There are various techniques, namely, arc discharge, laser ablation, and chemical vapor deposition for the synthesis of carbon nanofibers (CNFs) with high purity. In the present study, the main focus is on the synthesis of copper nanoparticles grown carbon nanofibers (Cu-CNFs) supported on graphite powder by catalytic chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method using acetylene (C 2 H 2 ) as the source of carbon to grow CNFs. Herein, we demonstrate the synthesis of CNFs on less porous (S BET = 3 m 2 /g) graphite powder using Cu NPs as the CVD catalyst. The synthesized CNFs were further heat treated under inert atmosphere. Transmission electron microscopic analysis revealed that the synthesis of CNFs by CVD method followed tip growth mechanism. Besides, energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) complemented with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic (XPS) analysis confirmed that the synthesized material was of high purity.