News Article
Nanotube spinners
Researchers at Cambridge University in the UK report direct spinning of carbon nanotube fibres from the gaseous reaction zone in a chemical vapour deposition (CVD) chamber (Science, April 9, 2004). The technique uses a liquid carbon source (ethanol with dissolved ferrocene and thiophene).
Researchers at Cambridge University in the UK report direct spinning of carbon nanotube fibres from the gaseous reaction zone in a chemical vapour deposition (CVD) chamber (Science, April 9, 2004). The technique uses a liquid carbon source (ethanol with dissolved ferrocene and thiophene).
"By mechanically drawing the carbon nanotubes directly from the gaseous reaction zone, we have found it possible to wind up continuous fibre without an apparent limit to the length," say the authors, Ya-Li Li, Ian A Kinloch and Alan H Windle.
The nanotubes formed an aerogel in the hot zone that the authors say "appeared rather like ‘elastic smoke’, because there was sufficient association between the nanotubes to give some degree of mechanical integrity."
