Abstract
Current studies of carbon nanotubes have enabled both new electronic applications and improvements to the performance of existing ones. Manufacturing of macroscopic electronic components with this material generally involves the use of printed electronic methods, which must use carbon nanotube (CNT) powders. However, in recent years, it has been shown that the use of ready-made self-standing macroscopic CNT assemblies could have considerable potential in the future development of electronic components. Two examples of these are spun carbon nanotube fibers and CNT films. The following paper considers whether these spun materials may replace printed electronic CNT elements in all applications. To enable the investigation of this question some practical experiments were undertaken. They included the formation of smart textile elements, flexible and transparent components, and structural electronic devices. By taking this approach it has been possible to show that CNT fibres and films are highly versatile materials that may improve the electrical and mechanical performance of many currently produced printed electronic elements. Additionally, the use of these spun materials may enable many new applications and functionalities particularly in the area of e-textiles. However, as with every new technology, it has its limitations, and these are also considered.
Highlights
The history and current developments in the miniaturization of classical electronic components are both well known, more recently and in parallel, printed electronics have developed very rapidly enabling the manufacture of a set of new of macro and microscopic electronic devices [1]
Thin and thick carbon nanotube (CNT) films used for flexible transparent electrical components and 3D shaped structures respectively were produced via the floating catalyst chemical vapour deposition (FC–CVD) method according to the method reported before [46,47]
In considering the use of spun carbon nanotube fibers and films for the production of macroscopic electronic elements, which are currently produced using printed electronics techniques, we found that there is a good potential for this approach
Summary
The history and current developments in the miniaturization of classical electronic components are both well known, more recently and in parallel, printed electronics have developed very rapidly enabling the manufacture of a set of new of macro and microscopic electronic devices [1] The strength of the latter technology lies in the fact that by using of a set of relatively common printing techniques such as screen printing, inkjet, spray coating or 3D printing, combined with a wide range of newly developed materials, such as organic polymers, metal nanoparticles, or carbon nanomaterials, the production of macroscale inexpensive electronic devices is made possible [2,3,4]. The spun fibers and films are characterized by a high thermal conductivity coupled with mechanical strength, fatigue resistance, specific surface area/porosity and flexibility Thanks to these properties they show considerable promise as materials for smart textiles, antennas, sensors, capacitors, batteries and many more applications [26,27,28,29,30,31,32]. The following paper considers both the opportunities and the limitations associated with the use of spun CNT fibers and films in electronics
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