Abstract: High yield carbon nanowires were fabricated by a detonation-assisted chemical vapor deposition approach, using low activity iron-nickel as catalyst or a cobalt catalyst to freeze the growth process of carbon nanotubes. TEM observations indicated that the two kinds of carbon nanowires had rough surfaces. Compared with the nanowires obtained from the iron-nickel catalyst, the products obtained from the cobalt catalyst had uniform diameter and were less coalesced. The difference should be associated with the activity of the metal catalysts. Methylene blue degradation experiments showed that the latter carbon nanowires can enhance the photocatalysis activity of ZnS nanocrystals.