The Effect Of Carbon Nanotubes On Other Fields Of Materials Science

Nano-composite plastics and carbon nanotubes have been utilized for industrial and consumer packaging, the later offering an improved packaging solution for electronics components by making the materials used lighter and stronger. Nano-porous silica is a high porous, low-density solid material that supports various temperatures making it a great insulation product that can be applied in a wide range of fields from pipe insulation to refrigerators and even microelectronics. Nanoparticle based colloids are employed in the manufacturing of sunscreens, paints, and printer inks and nano-coatings can be applied in order to obtain scratch resistant surfaces. Composite nano-materials can be considered the basis for all the other current and future commercial applications of nanotechnology.

In order to fix these shortcomings, Mark Kendall and his team have come up with a solution called Nanopatch. The Nanopatch technology is made with

The discovery of fullerenes also led to research in carbon nanotubes, the cylindrical cousins of buckyballs, and the development of new fields of advanced materials. Carbon nanotubes unique structural and bonding properties, whereby inner tubes in a multi-walled nanotube can slide within an outer tube, suggest uses in tiny motors and as ball bearings and lubricants. Twenty-five years after their discovery, fullerenes provide abundant research opportunities in pure chemistry, materials science, pharmaceutical chemistry, and nanotechnology. Buckminsterfullerenes are found in soot and ash. It also found in skin creams combine with olive oil. It is not available as a food supplement or drug. It is not tested for use in humans other than skin supplies. It often acts as an antioxidant but it can also be toxic especially after exposure to

Some examples of compounds formed by carbon include diamonds which are pure carbon and are the hardest substance known to man with no known other material that can cut them. Graphite which is also a pure carbon-based molecule can be found in your pencil as lead. The oil in our cars is made of carbon, and the plastic of your keypad is carbon-based. Additionally, Carbon nanotubes which can self assemble and provide not only incredible strength, but also electrical, optical, thermal and kinetic properties like no other materials (The Biochemical Essense of Life: Carbon, n.d.). Another key feature of carbon is that its bonds are strong enough to resist environmental stresses, but weak enough to be manipulated by our bodies with enzymes which is a requirement of any organism’s metabolism (The Biochemical Essense of Life: Carbon, n.d.).

Carbon is the fundamental element for everything on Earth. All life on Earth depends on carbon. Carbon has different forms of allotropes including diamond, graphene and charcoal. Carbon is found in position 12, with 4 colvalent electrons. All the allotropes have different properties nd uses due to how the carbon atoms are bonded. Carbon is able to single, double and triple bond with other elements to form complex molecules. Carbon can also use its four electrons to form diamond, where it is strong and stable, or three electrons to form graphite found in pencils, buckyball or all forms of nanocarbon including carbon nanotube.

Carbon is the fourth most abundant element on Earth. It has many practical uses in a variety of different areas of science. Due to the wide variety of structures, which all have different properties, there are a variety of uses. Carbon is an element with the most allotropes, next to sulfur. The allotropes greatly differ in structure but are all widely used in modern production. Graphite, diamond and fullerenes are the three allotropes of carbon. Graphite has lubricating properties which makes it useful in pencils. The lubricating property exists due to the six membered rings existing in planes that can easily slide past one another. Graphite is the most thermodynamically stable allotrope at ordinary conditions. In

In general, the Buckminster Fullerene is the third allotropic form of Carbon, with the other two being Graphite and Diamond. The more proper term used to describe these compounds in regards to Carbon compounds would be Graphenes.

Xianglong et al. found similar results (2) in their paper. The cell number on the Nanotube with 30 nm diameter was significantly higher than the one without the nanotubes. For each incubation time, the surface with the absence of nanotubes had the least cell adhesion. Even with respect to the filopodia the nanotubes showed similar behavior. On the surface withy nanotubes of 30 nm diameter, the actin of the cells was organized along the spreading direction and had formed many filopodia. Interestingly, most of the cells on the surface of 80 nm diameter group maintained a round or oval shape, but the cells also stretched out many filopodia. Cells on the three nanotextured surface had stretched out many filopodia and some lamellipodia. In particular, the cellular cytoskeleton of cells on the 80 nm surface achieved a more homogeneous and extensive arrangement compared with those of the other three groups. The shapes of cells grown on the SLA + 30 nm and SLA + 80 nm surfaces were clearly different. It was observed that those grown on the SLA + 80 nm surface were the most irregularly shaped, while those grown on the SLA + 30 nm surfaces had relatively regular shapes.

From all of these uses, graphite also has the ability to conduct electricity, and we can the reason as to why when looking at the electron arrangement in graphite. As each Carbon atom bonds to three other Carbon atoms, there is a fourth electron remaining in the bonding level. These remaining electrons in each Carbon atom form into a “sea” of delocalised electrons, moving around the whole sheet of atoms in the one layer. It is the ability of these delocalised electrons to move freely through their own Carbon layer, hence, making graphite a good conductor of electricity. Being a good conductor of electricity graphite, can be used as electrodes to an arc lamp and to carry the electricity that heats electric arc furnaces.

Carbon nanotubes get all of their impressive properties from their physical structure. They are hexagons of covalently bonded carbon atoms. A covalent bond is a bond between two non-metals atoms. Two of these atoms are bonded to four others and form another hexagon and these other hexagons exist on all the sides of the first and off of each other. This would look like a sheet of hexagons that could then be "wrapped" into tubes. These tubes can be single walled (SWCNTs), and multi-walled (MWCNTs) depending on the number of layers they have. The carbon atoms in these nanotubes have S2P2 chemical bonds (Zhang 7). This means that the atoms have one

Sometimes, the greatest breakthrough originates from something simple. In the case of graphene, the breakthrough started when scientists began to slice graphite, a common substance present in pencil, atom by atom. When it reaches to an atom thick, each single layer is known as graphene. It turns from being a humble pencil lead to a revolutionary material that may earn the title ‘material of the decade’. The properties of graphene are extraordinary, it is recorded as the best electrical and thermal conductor in the world. Even though the material is known to be harder than a diamond, it successfully shocked scientists for its flexibility. These facts sparked the curiosity of scientists and encouraged them to explore more of this material.

Nanotechnology is the development of atoms in a certain object. Nanotechnology has become very popular in the past few years. It is a way to rebuild the systems of life. To make systems move faster than ever before. Nanometer is about 10 times the size of an atom. Each of these has a huge effect on a system. Still there are questions out there that keep people wondering how important nanotechnology is to us. Many wonder how will it affect them and if we should continue this research. I myself wondered about nanotechnology. After researching this topic I have learned new and interesting facts to help me understand the entire concept.

Buckypaper is a small molecular structure that is most commonly associated with the shape of a soccer ball. About 1/50000th the diameter of a single human hair, this incredibly small material possesses superior properties that make it a remarkably great conductor for both heat and electricity (Ray B). Its small, yet effective, attributes are a result of the powerful atomic bonds found within unique molecular fibers of these nanostructures (Boyd J). About 100 times stronger than steel and only one sixth of its total weight, buckypaper is the perfect replacement for all composite materials currently used to construct aerodynamic crafts (Boyd J).

Graphene is a form of carbon which has recently been receiving a great deal of attention. Some have come to call it “the wonder material” due to its many extraordinary properties. Although isolated in 2004, graphene's properties had been calculated decades earlier. It consists of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice. A single sheet of graphene is stronger than steel and yet remains very flexible, retaining all of its properties despite being bent and unbent multiple times. It is able to sustain extremely high electric current densities, is impermeable to all gasses, has a thermal conductivity double that of diamond and a very high electron mobility at room temperature. It is also easily chemically functionalized,

Carbon nanotubes are cylindrical in shape and, made up of carbon atoms that have extraordinary properties. “At a singular level,