Award winning nanotechnology
06/07/2006
Scientists at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) NanoTech Institute, together with an Australian collaborator have won two awards for their breakthroughs in fabricating carbon nanotube yarns and transparent nanotube sheets.
The UTD team, lead by Dr Ray Baughman, and an Australian colleague, Dr Ken Atkinson from Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Textile and Fibre Technology, were awarded the NanoVic Prize.
The researchers successfully assembled trillions of carbon nanotubes into strong, tough, electronically and thermally conducting nanotube yarns and transparent nanotube sheets and demonstrated their utility for such diverse applications as electronic textiles, protective clothing, artificial muscles, supercapacitors and organic light-emitting displays.
Individual nanotubes have spectacular properties, including strengths ten times higher than commercial fibres or yarns, a thermal conductivity higher than diamond and a thousand-fold higher current-carrying capability than copper. The challenge has been in developing methods for correctly assembling billion-mile lengths of oriented individual nanotubes for every pound of fabricated yarn and sheet, and doing so at industrially usable rates.
The sheets and yarns are produced at up to 10 metres per minute by the coordinated rotation of a trillion nanotubes per minute for every centimetre of sheet width. By comparison, the production rate for commercial wool spinning is 20 metres per minute.
The UTD team, lead by Dr Ray Baughman, and an Australian colleague, Dr Ken Atkinson from Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Textile and Fibre Technology, were awarded the NanoVic Prize.
The researchers successfully assembled trillions of carbon nanotubes into strong, tough, electronically and thermally conducting nanotube yarns and transparent nanotube sheets and demonstrated their utility for such diverse applications as electronic textiles, protective clothing, artificial muscles, supercapacitors and organic light-emitting displays.
Individual nanotubes have spectacular properties, including strengths ten times higher than commercial fibres or yarns, a thermal conductivity higher than diamond and a thousand-fold higher current-carrying capability than copper. The challenge has been in developing methods for correctly assembling billion-mile lengths of oriented individual nanotubes for every pound of fabricated yarn and sheet, and doing so at industrially usable rates.
The sheets and yarns are produced at up to 10 metres per minute by the coordinated rotation of a trillion nanotubes per minute for every centimetre of sheet width. By comparison, the production rate for commercial wool spinning is 20 metres per minute.
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