Rice chemists give helping hand to carbon nanotubes

The terms "handmade" and "high tech" are not commonly found in the same sentence, but they both apply to a Rice University method to quickly produce fibers from microscopic carbon nanotubes. The method developed by the Rice lab of chemist Matteo Pasquali allows researchers to make short lengths of strong, conductive fibers from bulk nanotubes in about an hour.

Carbon nanotubes have a range of desirable properties, including very high tensile strength, plus high elasticity and flexibility.

Here, Rice chemists – including lead researcher Matteo Pasquali – describe how they are taking a low-tech approach to produce short lengths of strong, conductive fibres from bulk nanotubes in about an hour. The research is published in Advanced Materials.