World Record: Four-Centimeter-Long Carbon Nanotube

colonist writes "University of California scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory and chemists from Duke University have recently grown a four-centimeter-long, single-wall carbon nanotube (SWNT): a new world record. Previous SWNTs were a few millimeters long. Yuntian Zhu and his colleagues used a process called 'catalytic chemical vapor deposition' from ethanol (alcohol) vapor. From their abstract: 'Our results suggest the possibility of growing SWNTs continuously without any apparent length limitation.' Zhu: 'although this discovery is really only a beginning, the continued development of longer length carbon nanotubes could result in nearly endless applications. Actually, the potential uses for long carbon nanotubes are probably limited only by our imagination.'"

Comments

200 meter carbon nanotube fibers also out

[ghostlibrary]

In Science News, June 14, 2003, Baughman's team of Univ of Texas made a single-walled carbon nanotube fiber composite that's the width of a human hair, and 100 to 200 meters long. The nanotubes are spun with polyvinyl alcohol, and are 4 times tougher than spider silk (the previous record-holder) as well as stronger (can hold more weight).

100-200 meters, that's a length you can do useful stuff. One weird thing is, they weave it in with ordinary cloth to make supercapacitors in clothing (for built-in antenna,s tiny batteries, et cetera). The field is called 'electronic textiles'!

One use for Carbon Nanotubes: LUNG CANCER

[Bifster]

One thing that concerns me with nanotechnology is that the creation of all kinds of weird molecules that nature has no time to adapt to may leave us with some remarkably odd (and possibly pervasive) toxicity problems.

What if CNT's get widely adopted into clothing, tupperware, etc, and then 30 years down the line we find that the little fibers that inevitably break off when you handle such material get lodged in the lungs and induce cancer (like asbestos and other kinds of fibers do)?

I've heard of all kinds of interesting possible applications of CNT's (super strong fabrics and cables, conductive fabrics, electro-kinetic fabrics (generates electricity for your ipod just from you moving around)). But is anyone looking seriously into governing and exploring toxicity issues with these new synthetic molecules and materials?

bif