Carbon Nanotubes: Advanced Topics in the Synthesis, Structure, Properties and Applications

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The carbon nanotubes field has evolved substantially since the publication of the bestseller Carbon Nanotubes: Synthesis, Structure, Properties and Applications . The present volume builds on the generic aspects of the aforementioned book, which emphasizes the fundamentals, with the new volume emphasizing areas that have grown rapidly since the first volume, guiding future directions where research is needed and highlighting applications. The volume also includes an emphasis on areas like graphene, other carbon-like and other tube-like materials because these fields are likely to affect and influence developments in nanotubes in the next 5 years.

Carbon Nanotubes: Advanced Topics in the Synthesis, Structure, Properties and Applications

Carbon Materials And Technological Advances

Carbon, one of the most abundant element in nature, has the capability to be combined chemically with itself and with other elements by strong covalent bonds resulting in a variety of structures that enable the development of resources of Different properties. The carbon materials can be very solid as diamond or graphite as easily delaminated, very dense, high strength (composite materials carbon / carbon), and therefore appropriate for structural applications (aircraft and racing cars), or very porous (activated carbon); the latter being useful as adsorbents for energy storage or as a support for catalysts. They can be Extremely conductive (graphite) or insulating (vitreous carbon). This broad spectrum of properties is reinforced by the fact that only carbon resources are capable of operating at extreme temperatures in the most extreme conditions.

The carbon materials have been gathered much attention with the discovery of fullerenes and nanotubes. However, traditional carbon supplies have played an principal role since prehistoric period (pigment in cave paintings, a component of gunpowder, writing) and have contributed to the manufacturing and technological development of our society (steel).

The discovery of carbon fibers in the ’60s, with its eminent strength and flexibility, was a major achievement in the development of these materials. In parallel, we discover the vitreous carbon, named after filing a conchoidal fracture surface, with properties analogous to glass, very solid and brittle. At the same time, the discovery of brand new structural forms of graphitic carbon, needle and spherules, ostensibly contributed to the development of new carbon Materials for very diverse applications.

The outstanding biocompatibility of carbon materials, revealed in the 70s, its service in prostheses, ligaments and heart valves, among others.

In the early ’80s, the development of machinery for producing blocks of high-level density isotropic graphite allowed its application in high temperature reactors, in devices of synthesis of semiconductor crystals and to components of electric discharge electrodes. At mid-80s,  the introduction of carbon fibers in civil engineering, architectural systems (buildings, bridges) with the discovery of fullerenes.

In the 90s, was discovered nanotubes, opening a modern era for carbon supplies: The era of the nanostructure. It is not just the world of carbon graphite flat structures or three-dimensional type diamond, but we are now with closed structures containing pentagons of carbon atoms and carbon tubes with diameters in the nanometer scale, made of a sheet plain curved carbon atoms in hexagonal distribution. The discovery of carbon nanotubes of a single wall (single) and multiple wall, stimulated the fascination of scientists and engineers in fields associated to nanotechnology. At the same time, new applications of the materials of the family of graphite, such as anode materials for Li-ion battery rechargeable carbon fiber water refining, activated carbon electrodes for electric double layer supercapacitors, etc. .

More recently, in 2004, was developed the isolating graphene, a flat sheet structure of an atom thick. Its exceptional electrical properties have revolutionized the field of science, finding application in electronics (ultra-fast computers, replacing the silicon), in the imminent construction of space elevators, individual protection systems (body armor) in the field of security etc.. In July 2008, researchers at Columbia University confirmed that this is the strongest material so far identified.

Using Carbon Nanotubes To Produce Electricity

The researchers of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have uncovered a new phenomenon of carbon nanotubes. They found that carbon nanotubes discharge powerful waves of electricity under certain circumstances. MIT team named it as thermopower waves. They are pinning their hope on thermopower waves to produce electricity to be utilized in small electrical appliances or maybe in large-scale applications too. This project was funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the US National Science Foundation (NSF).

This discharge of electricity from carbon nanotubes is a very rare occurrence. Traditionally we derive electricity from water, sun, wind, coal or heat produced by burning of fossil fuels. The thermopower wave, “opens up a new area of energy research, which is rare,” said Michael Stranowho is MIT’s Charles and Hilda Roddey associate professor of Chemical Engineering. His work was published in scientific journal Nature Materials.

Carbon nanotubes are submicroscopic structures. They are just billionths of a meter in diameter. Carbon nanotubes resemble honeycombs. For the past twenty years scientists are focusing their energies on carbon nanotubes, graphene sheets and buckeyballs. They find these three most promising for clean and green energy research. These three substances can be valuable for the medicine, nanotechnology, geoengineering, biology, and for the electronics industry.

Researchers associated with this project find the whole phenomenon quite unusual. They have observed that as the moving pulses of heat pass through the carbon naotubes, electrons also travel along. This movement of electrons is responsible for generation of electric current. Strano says, “There’s something else happening here. We call it electron entrainment since part of the current appears to scale with wave velocity.”

Researchers coated carbon nanotubes with a layer of reactive fuel that can generate heat by decomposing. This fuel was then ignited by a laser beam or high voltage spark at the one end of the nanotube. This ignition resulted in fast moving thermal waves. When this thermal wave enters into carbon nanotube its velocity increases thousand times than the fuel itself. When heat waves contact the thermal coating they produce a temperature of 3,000 kelvins. This ring of heat runs to the length of the tube 10,000 times faster than the normal spread of this chemical reaction. The unusual occurrence is that electrons also travel with the heat inside the tube. Strano says that events like this “have been studied mathematically for more than 100 years” but he was the first to envisage that such waves could be guided by a nanotube or nanowire and that this wave of heat could thrust an electrical current all along that wire.

Strano explains, “There’s something else happening here. We call it electron entrainment, since part of the current appears to scale with wave velocity.” He confirms that the thermal waves are behaving like ocean waves. We have observed that when ocean waves travel they carry the debris on their surface. Strano thinks that this property is responsible for the high power output by the system. Strano suggests the possible use of this discovery. He says that one possible use could be enabling new kinds of ultra-small electronic devices having sensors or treatment devices that would be injected into the body.

Ray Baughman, director of the Nanotech Institute at the University of Texas at Dallas, shares his views regarding the whole project that it “started with a seminal initial idea, which some might find crazy, and provided exciting experimental results, the discovery of new phenomena, deep theoretical understanding, and prospects for applications.” Because it revealed a previously unknown phenomenon, he says, it could open up “an exciting new area of investigation.”

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Hydrogen Materials Science and Chemistry of Carbon Nanomaterials: Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Hydrogen Materials Science an Chemistry … Crimea, Ukraine, September 14-20, 2003

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The 2003 International Conference

Hydrogen Materials Science and Chemistry of Carbon Nanomaterials: Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Hydrogen Materials Science an Chemistry … Crimea, Ukraine, September 14-20, 2003

Carbon Nanomaterials

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First Self-Contained Source Entirely Dedicated to Nanocarbons

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) attract a good deal of attention for their electronic, mechanical, optical, and chemical characteristics. But nanostructured carbons are not limited to nanotubes and fullerenes—they also exist as nano-diamonds, fibers, cones, scrolls, whiskers, and graphite polyhedral crystals. While excellent papers and articles exist scattered across several journals, a comprehensive, single volume focused simply on carbon-based nanostructures was unavailable, until now.

Featuring the contributions of exceptional leaders in the field, Carbon Nanomaterials brings together the most up-to-date research findings on the special properties, practical synthesis, and real applications for all types of carbon-related nanomaterials. The authors emphasize the importance of nanotexture and surface chemistry in various modification methods used to customize properties for a wide range of applications. They also draw attention to challenges that must be addressed before they are fully integrated into the next generation of science and engineering applications. The final chapter is dedicated to examining the timely application of carbon nanotubes as a composite material for solar cells and electrical hydrogen storage.  

Carbon Nanomaterials provides a broad survey of numerous carbon-based nanomaterials in the context of commercially available nanomaterials as well as emerging technologies and future applications in the fields of molecular electronics, sensoring, nano- and micro electromechanic devices, field-emission displays, energy storage, and composite materials.

Carbon Nanomaterials