“The cheapest carbon nanotubes on the market cost around $100-200 per kilogram,” Douglas said. The key was making them small enough to be valuable. student Anna Douglas and their team describe how tiny nanoparticles 10,000 times smaller than a human hair can be produced from coatings on stainless steel surfaces. In a report published today in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, Pint, interdisciplinary material science Ph.D. “These could revolutionize the world.” Anna Douglas (Vanderbilt University) “That opens the door to being able to generate really valuable products with carbon nanotubes. “One of the most exciting things about what we’ve done is use electrochemistry to pull apart carbon dioxide into elemental constituents of carbon and oxygen and stitch together, with nanometer precision, those carbon atoms into new forms of matter,” Pint said. These materials, which Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Cary Pint calls “black gold,” could steer the conversation from the negative impact of emissions to how we can use them in future technology. Not only did the Vanderbilt team show they can make these materials from carbon dioxide sucked from the air, but how to do this in a way that is much cheaper than any other method out there. The reason they’re not in every application from batteries to tires is that these amazing properties only show up in the tiniest nanotubes, which are extremely expensive. Cary Pint (Vanderbilt University)Ĭarbon nanotubes are supermaterials that can be stronger than steel and more conductive than copper. That’s essentially what Vanderbilt University researchers produced after discovering the blueprint for turning the carbon dioxide into the most valuable material ever sold – carbon nanotubes with small diameters. Imagine a box you plug into the wall that cleans your toxic air and pays you cash.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |