Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ARENA (Aligned Roll-to-Roll Shear Coating of Nanotubes)
Período documentado: 2017-07-01 hasta 2018-12-31
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.