Researchers Grow Their Longest Carbon Nanotube Ever by UC research team.Long nanotubes are critical to manufacturers and practitioners in such fields as transportation, defense, safety and medicine. Because of their increased surface area, large nanotube arrays offer improvements in sensors. Larger nanotubes can be “spun” — or suspended in an epoxy-like substrate. In conjunction with First Nano (FN), a division of CVD Equipment Corporation, UC has grown an array on FN’s EasyTube Carbon Nanotube system that is longer than 7 mm.
“The harmonious combination of substrate, alloy catalyst and process conditions was found to consistently produce nanotube arrays more than 7 mm long” says Professor Vesselin Shanov, co-director of Smart Materials Nanotechnology Laboratory at the University of Cincinnati (UC). In recognition for its commitment to nanotechnology education at both the graduate and undergraduate level, UC is ranked #2 in the United States for nanotechnology education by Small Times magazine. “First Nano and UC have collaborated in the past and are planning on future collaboration to scale up production of nanotube arrays for applications that man has only dreamed of, like a super-strong cable for a space elevator and featherweight composite materials for sporting goods, aircraft structures, armor and many more uses.”
Synthesis of Carbon Nanotube Arrays
The breakthroughs at the University of Cincinnati and CVD Equipment Corporation (of Ronkonkoma, New York), have led to the growth of large carbon nanotube arrays. While individual carbon nanotubes are only 20 billionths of a meter in diameter, the array of carbon nanotubes grow as millimeter-long dense forests on centimeter-wide substrates. Years of research by UC’s Shanov, Schulz and students Andrew Gorton and Yun YeoHeung led to the invention of the method for growing the large nanotube arrays. Researchers and engineers at CVD Equipment Corporation developed and built the equipment used to grow the large carbon nanotube arrays.
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