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The World's Longest Carbon Nanotube

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the woot-nanohair-different-color-every-week dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "As you probably know, carbon nanotubes have very interesting mechanical, electrical and optical properties. The problem, currently, is that they're too small (relatively speaking) to be of much use. Now, researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have developed a process to build extremely long aligned carbon nanotube arrays. They've been able to produce 18-mm-long carbon nanotubes which might be spun into nanofibers. Such electrically conductive fibers could one day replace copper wires. The researchers say their nanofibers could be used for applications such as nanomedicine, aerospace and electronics."

2 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Wow by jswigart · · Score: 5, Funny

    So perhaps the internet will indeed become a series of tubes?

  2. Re:Come again by ian_mackereth · · Score: 5, Informative
    Just to get some perspective on this, 18mm is about a third of the length of good quality wool fibres.

    That puts it in the area of useable length for macro-sized application.