Oxidative heat treatment of 316L stainless steel for effective catalytic growth of carbon nanotubes

- Brief pre-treatment of 316L stainless steel mesh enabled effective growth of CNTs.
- The pretreatment was conducted under an oxidizing atmosphere (air) at 800 °C.
- Further treatment under a reducing atmosphere and application of additional catalysts were not necessary.
- The stainless steel mesh served both as a substrate and as a catalyst.
- Vertically grown CNT forests were readily achieved when the mesh pre-treatment duration was 10 min.