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Processing

Superacids offer nanotube solution

Nature Nanotechnology volume 4, pages 800–801 (2009)Cite this article

Single-walled carbon nanotubes can be dissolved in superacids to produce solutions that should make it easier to process nanotubes into bulk structures.

Carbon nanotubes have many remarkable properties: they are very strong and stiff; they conduct electricity, potentially very well; and they show very high thermal conductivity. Furthermore, in common with nanoscale particles in general, their high ratio of surface area to volume means that they interact strongly with their surroundings. The challenge for anyone hoping to make use of these properties in real-world applications is to find routes to process nanotubes into device structures or bulk forms that are useful and commercially viable; this means that any achievement in the laboratory must, in the current jargon, be 'scaleable'. As assemblies of nanotubes will not melt in the conventional sense, processing them in solution is one route towards the production of bulk structures such as fibres or films.

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Figure 1: Free energies and different phases.

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  1. Alan Windle is in the Department of Materials Science, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3QZ, UK. ahw1@cam.ac.uk,

    Alan Windle

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  1. Alan Windle
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Windle, A. Superacids offer nanotube solution. Nature Nanotech 4, 800–801 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2009.366

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