Various techniques have been developed for the synthesis of carbon nanotubes, including arc discharge 1-3, laser vaporization 4,5 and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) 6-8. Recently, a subaqueous arc discharge (SAD) method 9-11 has been developed. Hsin et al. 9 achieved solution-phase production of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) by an arc discharge method in water. Sano et al.'s method 10 for producing high-quality spherical carbon nano-onions with C_(60) cores using an arc discharge between two graphite electrodes submerged in water also gives a light window to produce CNTs, and Zhu et al. 11 had used the same method to synthesize high-quality CNTs. The SAD method largely simplified the conventional arc discharge method. In this letter, we introduce a water-protected arc discharge (WPAD) method to produce high-quality CNTs on large scale. The WPAD method, as the SAD method 9-11, eliminates nearly all of the complex and expensive machinery associated with conventional CNTs growth techniques. Besides, this method has more advantages.
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