BEST known as Europe’s most active volcano, Mount Etna in Italy has a new role. Using cooled lava collected from the volcano, Dang Sheng Su and Xiao-Wie Chen at the Max Planck Society’s Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin, Germany, were able to speed up the synthesis of nanotubes and fibres.
They first pulverised the rock, then heated it to 700 °C and passed hydrogen and ethylene gas over it. Iron particles in the powdered lava catalysed the decomposition of ethylene, producing elemental carbon nanostructures on the rock.
Nanotubes are normally created by firing a laser or electric arc through powdered…
