Different Technical Applications of Carbon Nanotubes.

S Abdalla,F Al-Marzouki,A Abdel-Daiem,Ahmed A Al-Ghamdi

doi:10.1186/s11671-015-1056-3

Abstract

Carbon nanotubes have been of great interest because of their simplicity and ease of synthesis. The novel properties of nanostructured carbon nanotubes such as high surface area, good stiffness, and resilience have been explored in many engineering applications. Research on carbon nanotubes have shown the application in the field of energy storage, hydrogen storage, electrochemical supercapacitor, field-emitting devices, transistors, nanoprobes and sensors, composite material, templates, etc. For commercial applications, large quantities and high purity of carbon nanotubes are needed. Different types of carbon nanotubes can be synthesized in various ways. The most common techniques currently practiced are arc discharge, laser ablation, and chemical vapor deposition and flame synthesis. The purification of CNTs is carried out using various techniques mainly oxidation, acid treatment, annealing, sonication, filtering chemical functionalization, etc. However, high-purity purification techniques still have to be developed. Real applications are still under development. This paper addresses the current research on the challenges that are associated with synthesis methods, purification methods, and dispersion and toxicity of CNTs within the scope of different engineering applications, energy, and environmental impact.

Highlights

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) emerged in the field of nanotechnology because of their nanosize and unique properties
Carbon nanotubes are hollow cylinders made of graphite carbon atoms with nanoscale (10−9 m) which is much smaller than the human hair width [1]
These CNTs are the members of fullerene structural family with their ends capped with a hemisphere of bucky ball structure [2]

Summary

Introduction

Introduction Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) emerged in the field of nanotechnology because of their nanosize and unique properties. CNTs show high values of thermal conductivity [4,5,6], Young’s modulus [1, 7], large surface area [4], high current density [1, 7], ballistic transport on submicron scales, and massless Dirac fermion charge carrier abilities [4] which make their ability in the wide applications such as photovoltaic devices, sensors, transparent electrodes, supercapacitors, and conducting composites [4]. Review Carbon nanotubes have unique properties because of their structure and size which will be discussed .

Results

Conclusion