Synthesis and characterization of nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes by pyrolysis of melamine

The typical bamboo-like nitrogen doped carbon nanotubes (N-CNTs) have been successfully synthesized via pyrolysis of melamine (C3N6H6). The morphology of the samples is characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The synthesized nanotubes are structurally uniform. The nitrogen to carbon atomic ratio of N-CNTs determined by chemical element analysis is found to be 0.23. The corresponding binding energy of the samples is obtained through X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and the characteristic infrared peaks are recorded by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The characterization of thermal stability is obtained by thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA) under flowing argon. The photoluminescence (PL) spectrum of the product shows that all the emission peaks are located in the blue–violet wavelength region, which indicates that N-CNTs may have potential applications in nano-optical device fields. Moreover, the growth mechanism of N-CNTs is carefully discussed.