Carbon nanotube: A future Materials

Abstract
The opportunity for advanced countries lies in building
advanced tools needed to make more tools, and
supplying the programming, finance, logistics and
marketing required to intelligently manipulate matter.
In this way, manufacturing will continue to pack more
information and knowledge into less matter using less
energy, making the world to order. Any individual
interested in learning more about the materials
technologies that form the basis of energy creation,
conservation and delivery. We are looking for
Advanced Materials for Our Energy Future. This
provides a broad overview of materials research and
development areas that have been identified as having
the greatest potential for creating new energy sources or
more effectively conserving current ones. Study of
future materials will shape our future material
requirement. Today our requirement of having compact
with greater work efficiency is increasing day by day.

Contents
 • Introduction to future material
• Features of future material
• Introduction to carbon nanotubes
– discovery
• Properties that makes special
– Optical Properties
– Electrical Properties
– Mechanical Properties
– Thermal Properties
• Nanocarbon Technology Project
• Some main application of carbon
nanotubes
• Conclusion
• Reference

Introduction
We want material having very high hardness with low cost. More features in very compact
size. Lightest material with high strength. Efficient packaging material to preserve food and
all these types of items. Machine having high energy converting efficiency. More efficient
output machines. Materials are shaping our present and will shape our future, our living
standard, standard of thinking that’s make the matter of discussing. A European Space
Agency project has its sights set high – taking materials science into space. Experiments
carried out on board space-bound rockets are helping the scientists to develop the materials of
the future. These two new types of material are intermetallics – compounds of metals with
some extraordinary properties. As Lighter engines mean lighter planes that require less fuel.
Lower fuel consumption by aircraft will result in lower production of polluting gases such as
carbon dioxide. Jet-engine emissions contain greenhouse gases which affect Earth’s climate.
Reducing them will reduce the impact of aviation on climate change.

Some future materials

BIOWOOL

Developed by New Zealander Dan McLaughlin, Biowool is a biopolymer that’s flame

resistant and free from harmful chemicals and compounds. Made mainly from carpet factory
waste material, BioWool has dozens of potential uses: car interior and bus seat material,
and even luggage – McLaughlin has already managed to make a prototype suitcase from it.
As well as versatile, the material is very environmentally sound. It is made from waste and
once buried in the ground, it’s estimated it will fully biodegrade in around two years.
ULTRA-EVER DRY
Imagine a world where a spilled glass of Pinot Noir didn’t mean a hefty cleaning bill
for your Axminster. That’s the world that Ultra-Ever Dry wants to create. Less a material
than a coating for, well, pretty much any material, it repels water, mud, oil, paint and almost
any. When sprayed onto a surface, that surface essentially becomes stain-proof, ice-proof,
rust-proof, bacteria-proof and self-cleaning. Which is pretty amazing. It’s available now, with
a disclaimer that it’s designed for industrial use only.
MUSHROOM PACKAGING

Styrofoam is a useful material but green it most certainly. Enter Mushroom Packaging, an
alternative made entirely out mycelium, a network of fungal threads that’s “grown” around a
filling of agricultural byproducts. The process takes about a week and takes place in the dark
with no requirement for chemicals or even water. Strong and insulating, Mushroom
Packaging can be formed into almost any shape. Mycelium can also be used for surfboards,
car bumpers and even clothing – and once put in the ground it’s fully biodegradable.
AEROGEL

Nicknamed “frozen smoke”, aerogel is one of the lightest solid materials on the
planet, being semi-transparent and made of 99.98 percent air. Made from drying gels of
various elements, it’s both strong and an incredibly potent insulator against both heat and
cold – one potential use could be a transparent dome for humans to live in on the Moon. The
secret to its incredible properties is its internal fractal structure, which has a massive surface
area to volume ratio. A cubic inch of aerogel may have an internal surface area equivalent to
a football pitch. Aerogels are already used in wetsuits, firefighter suits, windows, cosmetics
and nuclear weapons, and in the future they’re expected to be used in body armour, non-
deflatable tyres and heat shields for spacecraft re-entry.

CARBON NANOTUBES

Not to be confused with carbon fibre, carbon nanotubes are incredibly tiny tubes of
carbon atoms. The properties of a particular nanotube depend on how it was rolled; it’s
possible to make one of these things hundreds of times stronger than steel whilst being six
times lighter, so you can see why they’re of such interest to the aerospace and automotive
industries. Not only that, they can also be made extremely conductive, meaning they have a
potential use in microchip – or rather nanochip – manufacture in the not-too-distant future.

CARBON NANOTUBE A BEST UPCOMING MATERIAL:

DISCOVERY OF CARBON NANOTUBES:
The unique geometric properties of this new allotrope of carbon (C36, C70, C76 and C84)
did not end with soccer shaped molecules, it was also discovered that carbon atoms can form
long
cylindrical tubes. These tubes were originally called “buckytubes” but now are better
known as carbon nanotubes or CNT for short.

NANOTUBE GEOMETRY:

Armchair arrangement of carbon atoms Zig-zag arrangement of carbon atoms Chiral arrangement of carbon atoms

SINGLE-WALLED AND MULTI-WALLED CARBON

NANOTUBES

Single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are a single cylinder of carbon atoms
forming a tube. They are normally around 1nm in diameter, but may be up to 5nm.
Multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) consist of two or more concentric
layers of carbon nanotubes with a hollow core typically 2-30nm in diameter. For
example, double-walled carbon nanotubes have two concentric layers.

Nanotube Growth Methods

Properties of carbon nanotubes:-

 1. Optical properties
Optical properties of carbon nanotubes refer specially to the absorption,
photoluminescence, and Raman spectroscopy of carbon nanotubes.
Absorption refers to spectroscopic techniques that measure the absorption of
radiation, as a function of frequency and wavelength.
Photoluminescene describes the phenomenon of light emission from any
form of matter after the absorption of photons (electromagnetic radiation).
Raman spectroscopy is a spectroscopic technique used to observe vibrational,
rotational and other low frequency modes in system.
2. Electrical properties
Electrical transport through carbon nanotubes has attracted considerable interest
due to the many possible applications of the nanotubes in nanoscale electronic
devices. The nanotubes are nearly perfect 1D conductors in which at low
temperatures a number of interesting mesoscopic phenomena has been observed
such as proximity-induced superconductivity.
3. Mechanical properties
The carbon nanotubes are expected to have high stiffness and axial strength as a
result of the carbon–carbon sp2 bonding. The practical application of the
nanotubes requires the study of the elastic response, the inelastic behavior and
buckling, yield strength and fracture.
4. Thermal properties
Theoretical work predicts a room-temperature thermal conductivity of 6600W/m
K for individual nanotubes. Measurements show a room temperature thermal
conductivity over 200 W/m K for bulk samples of single-walled nanotubes to
epoxy resin can double the thermal conductivity for a loading of 1%, showing that
nanotubes composite materials may be useful for thermal management
application.

Nanocarbon technology project

1. Development of catalysts for mass production
In the mass production of nanotubes, the catalyst holds the key. The Research
Center for Advanced Carbon Materials has developed two types of catalysts. One is a
nanometer-size metal particle catalyst. This is a new type of catalyst with many
advantages: al-though nano-size, it can be made from a diverse range of metals, and
can combine different metals. In the Nano-carbon Technology Project, this catalyst is
being used in the gaseous phase reaction process under development by Nikkiso Co.,
Ltd. The other catalyst is based on the use of a catalyst carrier for supporting stably
the 1-nm nano-particles. In the Nanocarbon Technology Project, this catalyst is being
used in the fluidized bed method under development by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries,
Ltd.
By the admixture of the so produced nanotubes with plastics, the mechanical strength
and electrical and thermal conductivity of the material are improved. The
development of applications of nanotubes as new catalyst materials, optical materials,
and gas storage materials is in full swing.

2. Ultra-high sensitivity electron microscope

 The success of the above nanocarbon technologies is underpinned by the
development of an ultra-high sensitivity, high-resolution electron microscope, which
has sub-nanoscale accuracy and is able to obtain information on the atomic
arrangement, element identification, and electronic structure of nanocarbon materials.
Our micro-scope, the sub-nanometer structure analysis system is being improved, so
that we have succeeded in revealing individual atoms on a nanocarbon.

Applications of carbon nanotubes

1. Application to electronics
The application of nanocarbon technologies to new transistors that surpass
conventional silicon-based semi-conductors holds great promise.
2. Biotech application
Nanocarbon tubes are 100% carbon and are compatible with cells and other
organic matter. In addition, precision growth and position-direction control
technologies developed for nanotube electronic device applications have potential for
application in a number of areas in the biotech field.
3. Energy Storage
Carbon nanotubes are being considered for energy production and storage.
Graphite, carbonaceous materials and carbon fiber electrodes have been used for
decades in fuel cells, battery and several other electrochemical applications. The rate
of electron transfer at carbon electrodes ultimately determines the efficiency of fuel
cells and this depends on various factors, such as the structure and morphology of the
carbon material used in the electrodes.
4. Hydrogen Storage
The area of hydrogen storage in carbon nanotubes remains active and
controversial. Extraordinarily high and reversible hydrogen adsorption in SWNT
containing materials and graphite nanofibers (GNFs) has been reported and has
attracted considerable interest in both academia and industry.
5. Filled Composites
The mechanical behavior of carbon nanotubes is exciting since nanotubes are
seen as the “ultimate” carbon fiber ever made. The traditional carbon fibers have
about fifty times the specific strength (strength/density) of steel and are excellent load-
bearing reinforcements in composites.
6. AFM probe tips
Single-walled carbon nanotubes have been attached to the tip of an AFM
probe to make the tip "sharper".
7. Flat panel display screens
When a nanotube is put into an electric field, it will emit electrons from the
end of the nanotube like small cannon. If those electrons are allowed to bombard a
phosphor screen then an image can be created.

There are many other uses of carbon nanotubes. This is vastly used by new
technology and also this is being setup by all new upcoming technologies.

Some queries about carbon nanotubes:-

 1. Are the CNTs loosely or tightly bound together?
Ans: CNTs, and particularly SWCNTs, can be very tightly bound together. They
readily agglomerate and aggregate. A very large clump of CNTs may be less
hazardous than loosely bound CNTs because:
a. Loose CNTs may be able to penetrate deeper into lung tissues
b. Loose CNTs may be fibre-like and cause pathogenic responses

2. Are the CNTs modified or functionalized, or coated with a chemical? Is this

chemical hazardous?
Ans: Functionalisation may make the CNTs more biodegradable and hence less
hazardous. The chemical coating on the CNT may also be hazardous.

3. Are there any contaminants or metallic catalysts present, such as iron or nickel?
If so, are any of them known to be harmful or reactive?
Ans: Some CNTs may contain heavy metals that are known carcinogens Residual
metallic catalysts may cause formation of reactive oxygen species, which may lead to
inflammation.

4. What is the length, width and aspect ratio (length: width) of the CNTs?
Ans: The ‘fibre-like’ character of CNTs is of concern especially when the aspect ratio
is greater than 3:1 and the length is greater than 5 microns as the fibers are less easily
cleared from the body. Using CNTs with a smaller aspect ratio or shorter CNTs may
be safer, however research has shown that these forms of CNTs may still be
hazardous to the lungs if inhaled.

Conclusion
 • In this presentation , the major developments in both the basic research and the
industrial application of the carbon nanotubes are reviewed.
• The theoretical efforts are directed to the understanding the amazing mechanical,
electronic, transport, vibrational, thermal, etc.
• properties most of them owing their uniqueness to the quasi-one-dimensional sp2-
bonded structure of the carbon nanotubes.
• At laboratory level nanotubes are being applied as tips of field emission devices,
elements of
• Nano-electronics devices, gas storage containers, reinforcement elements, etc.
• Nanotubes still have a wide range of unexplored potential applications in various
technological areas such as aerospace, energy, automobile, medicine, or chemical
industry, in which they can be used as gas adsorbents, templates, actuators, composite
reinforcements, catalyst supports, probes, chemical sensors, nano-pipes, nano-
reactors.
• It is now a widely-shared view that carbon-based materials are likely to be a major
field in the twenty first century technology.

References
• G.D. Mahan, Oscillations of a thin hollow cylinder: carbon nanotubes, Phys. Rev. B
63 (2002) 235402.
• S. Berber, Y.K. Kwon, D. Toma´nek, Unusually high thermal conductivity of carbon
nanotubes, Phys. Rev. Lett. 84(2000) 4613.
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