With charcoal as carbon source and FeS (20wt%) as catalyst, single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) were successfully produced by dc arc-discharge method. The analysis by scanning electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy clearly demonstrated that the SWNTs developed from charcoal achieved a high purity with diameter about 1.2 nm, and FTIR measurement showed the inner structural transformation of carbon source, in which functional groups and grapheme sheets were decomposed and then ordered into nanotubes. By this easy-get and relatively low cost material, the experimenal results clearly indicate that charcoal has the opportunity of reducing the cost of SWNTs production.
