Method of and apparatus for fabricating nano-sized carbon material

Abstract

It is an object of the invention to provide a method, and an apparatus, capable of fabricating a nano-sized carbon material excellent in quality by use of a three-dimensional discharge apparatus on a mass production basis. There are installed 12 pieces of discharge electrodes, 6 pieces each being horizontally disposed in two tiers, upper tier and lower tier, at a side face part of the discharge vessel. The 6 pieces of the discharge electrodes, in the upper tier and lower tier, respectively, are disposed so as to be angularly shifted by 60 degrees from each other along the horizontal plane, and it is set such that the respective discharge electrodes in the upper tier are disposed so as to be angularly shifted by 30 degrees from the respective discharge electrodes in lower tier as seen from above. ACs from an AC power source, having a phase difference being shifted from each other, are impressed on the 12 pieces of the discharge electrodes, respectively, and when the ACs are impressed on the discharge electrodes, respectively, an arc discharge is caused to occur between the respective discharge electrodes, thereby forming a plasma region in a region surrounded by the respective discharge electrodes. With the use of carbon electrodes for the discharge electrodes, vaporization of carbon from the discharge electrodes takes place owing to high temperature in the plasma region, thereby implementing synthesis of a high-impurity nano-sized carbon material.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.