2013/01/10 by Natnael Behabtu, Colin C. Young, Dmitri E. Tsentalovich +15 · 5 citations
Engineering · Materials Science · #Carbon Nanotubes in Composites #Carbon fibers #Carbon nanotube #Composite material #Composite number #Conductivity #Electrical engineering #Electronics #Fiber-reinforced polymer composites #Graphene research and applications #Materials science #Nanotechnology #Spinning #Thermal conductivity
paper · doi:10.1126/science.1228061
openalex publication_date 2013/01/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Broader applications of carbon nanotubes to real-world problems have largely gone unfulfilled because of difficult material synthesis and laborious processing. We report high-performance multifunctional carbon nanotube (CNT) fibers that combine the specific strength, stiffness, and thermal conductivity of carbon fibers with the specific electrical conductivity of metals. These fibers consist of bulk-grown CNTs and are produced by high-throughput wet spinning, the same process used to produce high-performance industrial fibers. These scalable CNT fibers are positioned for high-value applications, such as aerospace electronics and field emission, and can evolve into engineered materials with broad long-term impact, from consumer electronics to long-range power transmission.