NSF Award
9960030
This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will develop a cost-effective technology to prepare full-length single-walled carbon nanotubes (s-l-SWNTs). These SWNTs will be soluble in common organic solvents by the exfoliation and noncovalent functionalization of SWNT ropes. We expect to develop a dissolution process that can be scaled up at low cost, thereby enabling commercial production of soluble full-length single-walled carbon nanotubes. All of the currently known full-length SWNTs are insoluble in organic solvents. While single-walled carbon nanotubes are recognized as the ultimate carbon fiber, the development of soluble full-length single-walled carbon nanotubes can provide the necessary processability for the preparation of homogeneous nanotube-based copolymers and polymer composites in the form of monoliths, fibers, films and coatings. The development of these nanostructured materials is expected to enable applications in high temperature, high strength and light-weight structural materials for aircraft and space vehicles; electromagnetic radiation shielding coatings for military aircraft and ships; antistatic coatings for automobile; organic thin film devices for micro-electronics and -optoelectronics; thin film lithium batteries for space. Soluble individual single-walled carbon nanotubes are versatile building blocks for functional nanostructures which may find important application in molecular electronics.
