Aligned Roll-to-Roll Shear Coating of Nanotubes

Project Information

ARENA

Grant agreement ID: 737627

DOI

10.3030/737627

Project closed

EC signature date 10 May 2017

Start date 1 July 2017

End date 31 December 2018

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 149 963,00

EU contribution

€ 149 963,00

Coordinated by

THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ARENA (Aligned Roll-to-Roll Shear Coating of Nanotubes)

Reporting period: 2017-07-01 to 2018-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) are considered to be one of the 21st Century’s most promising materials because of their outstanding electrical and mechanical properties. In recent years, methods have been developed to synthesize CNTs in large volumes cost-effectively, however, the uptake of CNTs by high-tech Industry is hindered by the lack of high-throughput processes that allow for controlled CNT structuring. This is key to fabricate next generation CNT devices, and ultimately, the bottleneck to obtain tangible benefits from CNTs. This project aims at overcoming some of these challenges. In particular, we have developed a continuous flow dispersion process to reproducibly fabricate carbon nanotube (CNT) inks in large volumes. These inks were then coated continuously on a polymer film using a pilot scale Roll-to-Roll coater. We demonstrate that these films can be used as a thin film heater and are testing these with collaborators in Norway for de-icing applications. Finally we are screening a number of electronic applications for these thin CNT films.