Carbon Nanotubes tagged posts

The UW–Madison engineers use a solution process to deposit aligned arrays of carbon nanotubes onto 1 inch by 1 inch substrates. The researchers used their scalable and rapid deposition process to coat the entire surface of this substrate with aligned carbon nanotubes in less than 5 minutes. The team’s breakthrough could pave the way for carbon nanotube transistors to replace silicon transistors, and is particularly promising for wireless communications technologies. STEPHANIE PRECOURT

For decades, scientists have tried to harness the unique properties of carbon nanotubes to create high-performance electronics that are faster or consume less power – resulting in longer battery life, faster wireless communication and faster processing speeds for devices like smartphones and laptops...

Artistic rendition of a metallic carbon nanotube being pulled into solution, in analogy to the work described by the Adronov group.

Imagine an electronic newspaper that you could roll up and spill your coffee on, even as it updated itself before your eyes. It’s an example of the technological revolution that has been waiting to happen. Researchers at McMaster University have developed a new way to purify carbon nanotubes – smaller, flexible semiconductors expected to replace silicon within computer chips and a wide array of electronics. “Once we have a reliable source of pure nanotubes that are not very expensive, a lot can happen very quickly,” says Prof Adronov.

A major problem standing in the way of the new technology, however, has been untangling metallic and semiconducting carbon nano...

In this time-lapse series of photos, progressing from top to bottom, a coating of sucrose (ordinary sugar) over a wire made of carbon nanotubes is lit at the left end, and burns from one end to the other. As it heats the wire, it drives a wave of electrons along with it, thus converting the heat into electricity. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers

The batteries that power smartphones,computers and electric cars, are mostly made of toxic materials such as lithium that can be difficult to dispose of and have limited global supplies. Now, researchers have come up with an alternative system for generating electricity, which harnesses heat and uses no metals or toxic materials.

The new approach is based on a discovery in 2010 by Prof Michael Strano in Chemical Engineering, MIT...

The Solar Thermal Electrochemical Process (STEP) converts atmospheric carbon dioxide into carbon nanotubes that can be used in advanced batteries. Credit: Julie Turner, Vanderbilt University

s can be replaced with carbon recovered from the atmosphere. The team adapted a solar-powered process that converts carbon dioxide into carbon so that it produces carbon nanotubes that can be incorporated into both lithium-ion batteries like those used in electric vehicles and electronic devices and low-cost sodium-ion batteries under development for large-scale applications, such as the electric grid.

“This approach not only produces better batteries but it also establishes a value for carbon dioxide recovered from the atmosphere that is associated with the end-user battery cost unlike most efforts to...