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Shape-engineerable and highly densely packed single-walled carbon nanotubes and their application as super-capacitor electrodes

Nature Materials volume 5, pages 987–994 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

We present a rational and general method to fabricate a high-densely packed and aligned single-walled carbon-nanotube (SWNT) material by using the zipping effect of liquids to draw tubes together. This bulk carbon-nanotube material retains the intrinsic properties of individual SWNTs, such as high surface area, flexibility and electrical conductivity. By controlling the fabrication process, it is possible to fabricate a wide range of solids in numerous shapes and structures. This dense SWNT material is advantageous for numerous applications, and here we demonstrate its use as flexible heaters as well as supercapacitor electrodes for compact energy-storage devices.

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Figure 1: Liquid-induced collapse.
Figure 2: SWNT solid properties.
Figure 3: Engineerable shape.
Figure 4: Applications.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge S. Usuba for the use of the microhardness tester and the contributions by T. Namai, M. Mizuno, A. Otsuka, K. Ozawa and S. Yamada. We also gratefully acknowledge M. Goto and K. Nakayama for their discussions and assistance on X-ray diffraction. Partial support by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) Nano-Carbon Technology project is acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Center for Advanced Carbon Materials, Tsukuba, 305-8565, Japan

    Don N. Futaba, Kenji Hata, Takeo Yamada, Tatsuki Hiraoka, Yuhei Hayamizu, Motoo Yumura & Sumio Iijima

  2. National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, 305-8565, Japan

    Don N. Futaba, Kenji Hata, Takeo Yamada, Tatsuki Hiraoka, Yuhei Hayamizu, Yozo Kakudate, Osamu Tanaike, Hiroaki Hatori, Motoo Yumura & Sumio Iijima

  3. Japan Fine Ceramics Center, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, 305-8565, Japan

    Don N. Futaba

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  1. Don N. Futaba
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Contributions

D.N.F. and K.H. conceived and designed the experiments; D.N.F. performed the experiments; T.Y. and T.H. contributed to material analyses; Y.H. contributed to material preparation; T.H., O.T. and H.H. contributed to super-capacitor preparation/characterization; Y.K. contributed XRD analysis tools and D.N.F. and K.H. co-wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Kenji Hata.

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Futaba, D., Hata, K., Yamada, T. et al. Shape-engineerable and highly densely packed single-walled carbon nanotubes and their application as super-capacitor electrodes. Nature Mater 5, 987–994 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1782

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