Advanced Materials: Carbon Nanotubes

Prepared By: Submitted to

Md. Moniruzzaman Dr. Abu Bin Imran
Student No: 1018033204 Associate Professor
Dept. of Chemistry, BUET Dept. of Chemistry BUET
Content

1. What is a carbon Nanotube ?

2. Discovery of carbon Nanotube.
3. Properties of Carbon Nanotube.
4. Types of Carbon Nanotubes
5. Advantages of the carbon nanotubes.
6. Disadvantages of the carbon
nanotubes.
7. Application.
 What is a carbon Nanotube ?
• A carbon nanotube is a tube-shaped material, made of carbon, having a diameter measuring on
the nanometer scale. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter, or about 10,000 times smaller than a
human hair.
• Carbon nanotubes are allotrope from of carbon, which are arranged hexagonal shape. These tiny
straw-like cylinders of pure carbon have useful electrical properties. They have already been used to
make tiny transistors and one-dimensional copper wire.

3
Discovery of carbon Nanotube
Thousand of paper are being published every year on CNTs or related areas and most of these
papers give credit for the discovery of CNTs to Sumio Lijima of NEC corporation, Japan, who, in
1991, published a ground-breaking paper in nature reporting the discovery of multi-walled carbon
nanotubes (MWCNTs). This paper has been cited over 27,105 times in the literature ( as on
January 12, 2016, based on Scopus database).

This discovery by Lijima has triggered an avalanche of scientific publications and catapulted CNTs
onto global Scientific stage.
Properties of Carbon Nanotubes
i. Nanotubes are members of fullerene structural family.
ii. The chemical bonding of nanotube is composed entirely of SP2 bonds, similar to
those of graphite.
iii. Its length to diameter ratio of up to 132000000 : 1
iv. Extraordinarily flexible and elastic.
v. It is ideal conductors of electrical energy.

5
Types of Carbon Nanotubes :

Carbon nanotubes mainly classified in two type-

i. Single-walled Nanotubes (SWNTs)
ii. Multi-walled Nanotubes (MWNTs)

i. Single-walled Nanotubes (SWNTs): A single walled carbon nanotube (SWNT)

may be thought of as a single atomic layer thick sheet of graphite ( called
graphene) rolled into a seamless cylinder.
• The diameter of single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) has approximately to 1
Nanometer.
• Single-walled carbon nanotubes can be formed in three different designs-
i. Armchair
ii. Zigzag
iii. Chiral
• The (n,m) notation of CNT : A carbon nanotube can be seen as a sheet of
graphene that is "rolled up".
• Now, graphene is a two-dimensional lattice and hence has two lattice vectors, a⃗ 1 and a⃗ 2.
• The numbers (n,m) simply state that your tube is obtained from taking one atom of the sheet and
rolling it onto that atom that is at located na⃗ 1+ma⃗ 2 away from your original atom
• When one of the component is n and another is o that means (n,o) notation, this will be Zigzag.
if both are equal that means (n,n) notation, this will be armchair.
if neither is zero and nor they are equal, this will be chiral.
ii.Multi-walled Nanotubes (MWNT):
Multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs) consist of multiple rolled layers of graphite.
• It has very complex structure
• Purity of product is high
• It can be produced without catalyst.
There are two structure models of multi-walled nanotubes :
i. Russian doll model.
ii. Parchment model.
i.Russian doll model : In the Russian doll model, a carbon nanotube contains
another nanotube inside it (the inner nanotube has a smaller diameter then the
outer nanotube )
ii. Parchment model : In the parchment model, a single graphene sheet is rolled
around itself multiple times, resembling a rolled up scroll of paper.
Advantages of the carbon nanotubes :
I. High electrical and thermal conductivity.
II. Very high tensile strength.
III. Highly flexible and elastic.
IV. Improve conductive, mechanical and flame barrier properties of plastics and
composites.
V. Good field emission.
Disadvantages of carbon nanotubes :

I. Newer technology so not as much testing has been completed.

II. Lower lifetime ( 1750 hours compared to 6000 for silicon tips )
III. Higher potentials required for field emissions .
IV. Extremely small, so are difficult to work with.
V. The process is relatively expensive.
Application :
I. Conductive or reinforced plastics.
II. CNT based transistors.
III. Energy storage
IV. CNT based fibers and fabrics.
V. CNT based ceramics.
VI. Biomedical applications.
VII. As emitters of electron field, perfect for cathode ray lighting devices.