Brief Communications
Nature 423, 703 (12 June 2003) | doi:10.1038/423703a
Super-tough carbon-nanotube fibres
Alan B. Dalton1, Steve Collins1, Edgar Muñoz1, Joselito M. Razal1, Von Howard Ebron1, John P. Ferraris1, Jonathan N. Coleman2, Bog G. Kim1 & Ray H. Baughman1
The energy needed to rupture a fibre (its toughness) is five times higher for spider silk than for the same mass of steel wire, which has inspired efforts to produce spider silk commercially1, 2, 3. Here we spin 100-metre-long carbon-nanotube composite fibres that are tougher than any natural or synthetic organic fibre described so far, and use these to make fibre supercapacitors that are suitable for weaving into textiles.
- Department of Chemistry and The NanoTech Institute, University of Texas at Dallas Richardson, Texas 75080, USA
- Department of Physics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
Correspondence to: Ray H. Baughman1 e-mail: Email: ray.baughman@utdallas.edu
