Synthesis of carbon nanotubes with and without catalyst particles

The initial development of carbon nanotube synthesis revolved heavily around the use of 3d valence transition metals such as Fe, Ni, and Co. More recently, noble metals (e.g. Au) and poor metals (e.g. In, Pb) have been shown to also yield carbon nanotubes. In addition, various ceramics and semiconductors can serve as catalytic particles suitable for tube formation and in some cases hybrid metal/metal oxide systems are possible. All-carbon systems for carbon nanotube growth without any catalytic particles have also been demonstrated. These different growth systems are briefly examined in this article and serve to highlight the breadth of avenues available for carbon nanotube synthesis

Leading edge chemical crystallography service provision and its impact on crystallographic data science in the twenty-first century

National facilities provide state-of-the-art crystallographic instrumentation and processes and tend to act as an indicator for the direction of a community in the medium term. There has been a significant step up in terms of instrumentation and approach in the last 10 years which has driven data generation. This has had a significant impact on databases – in turn we observe a substantial change in the use of the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) from relatively basic search/retrieve to gaining deep understanding about factors that govern the solid state. Databases are now able to drive new science in areas such as crystal engineering. Looking forward, we will see more automated pipelining of the data generation process, and this will require better integration with databases. Databases will provide more predictive power – and this will inform the science/crystallography that should be done