Carbon Nano Tubes: Tapping Great Potential

Science is synonymous with progress and change. It tosses out the old to usher in the new. In this context, have you ever come across the word Carbon Nano-Tubes? You must have wondered at first glance as to what it means. Well, carbon nano-tubes are basically allotropes of carbon. A single wall carbon nano-tube is referred to as a one-atom thick of graphite sheet. This sheet is rolled up to a seamless cylinder with a diameter of the order of a nanometer.

It comes with certain specific properties that are not visible in the particles which are not of the nanometer order. These very novel properties are responsible in making carbon nano-tubes highly useful in a number of applications. These applications involve a variety of segments such as nanotechnology, optics, electronics and other such fields of materials sciences. These nano-tubes are potential because of its tremendous strength and extraordinary electrical properties.

Carbon nano-tubes are good conductors of heat. With high tensile strength and elastic modulus, it has proved itself as one of the stiffest and the strongest materials amongst the others. But carbon nano-tubes arent strong under compression. Theyve got a hollow structure and a high aspect ratio. For this reason, they undergo buckling whenever they are placed under a bending or torsional stress.

These carbon nano-tubes are also good thermal conductors. Almost all nano-tubes exhibit the property of ballistic conduction. It has been observed that carbon nano-tubes in specific can transmit up to 6000 watts per meter per Kelvin at the room temperature. When you compare it to copper, a well known thermal conductor, you will find that copper transmits only 385 watts per meter per Kelvin.

There are a number of types of carbon nano-tubes. These are: single walled, multi-walled, fullerite, torus and nanobud. Almost all the single-walled carbon nano-tubes have a diameter near to 1 nanometer. The length of these nanometers can be too long than the diameter. Multi-walled carbon nano-tubes have multiple layers of graphite sheets that are rolled in such a way that they form the shape of a tube.

Fullerite refers to the solid-state manifestation of fullerenes as well as related compounds and materials. A nanotorus has a doughnut shape which can be described as a carbon nano-tube shaped in to a torus. Lastly, there is the carbon nanobud. It is a new discovery of carbon allotrope. In this nano-tube, fullerene like buds are attached in covalent bonds to the outer sidewalls of the carbon nano-tubes.

Carbon nano-tubes have a temperature stability of approximately 2800 degrees Celsius in vacuum and it reduces to 750 degrees Celsius when measured in air. Thus, carbon nano-tubes are those specific nano-structures that have extraordinary mechanical and electronic properties that are not visible in other particles.

We have covered this topic with great depth. So here is a question for you to solve. What is the best practical example of a carbon nano-tube? Yes, you got it: SLC 01 bicycles! In fact, researchers have even found a possible new use for carbon nano-tubes to function as a possible gene delivery vehicle. So now think of the myriad examples of this amazing material and its great potential.