Showing posts with label carbon nanotubes. Show all posts

2012-02-27

Heated Fabric Using Carbon Nanotube Coated Fibers

Carbon Nanotube Coated Fibers Could One Day Lead To Self-Heating Clothing

Working with Hokkaido University, Kuraray Living has created a soft washable fabric woven with carbon nanotube coated fibers that produces heat when electricity is applied. So when it's perfected, your electric blanket could get a lot less bulky. The material has been in development since 2007, but recent advancements in carbon nanotube technology have given its creators hope that it could be used in commercial products as early as 2013.

Source: Carbon Nanotube Coated Fibers Could One Day Lead To Self-Heating Clothing

Source: Heated Fabric Using Carbon Nanotube Coated Fibers #DigInfo - YouTube

Nano Patents and Innovations: Full-Face Heating CNTEC Fabric Heater Coated with Carbon Nanotubes Unveiled by Japanese Trio

Full-Face Heating CNTEC Fabric Heater
Image Credit: Chakyu Dyeing Co., Ltd. / Kurarayliving Co., Ltd. / Matsubun Textile Co., Ltd

Source: Nano Patents and Innovations: Full-Face Heating CNTEC Fabric Heater Coated with Carbon Nanotubes Unveiled by Japanese Trio

Bunshi FUGETSU | CRIS -Creative Reserch Institution- Hokkaido University

Thanks to a new dispersion technology using a zwitterionic surfactant (a special type of dispersant solution in which a single molecule can have both positive and negative electrical charges simultaneously) developed and patented by us at Hokkaido University, it is now possible to achieve non-destructive dispersion of CNT agglomerates into individual tubes(Fig. 1).

[...]

During January to middle of March in 2009, the conductive fabric/heater system was installed in the water storage tank of JR Hokkaido's "Ryuhyo-Norokko" train that runs between Shiretoko-Shari and Awashiri. According to JR Hokkaido railway company, the fabric heater shows good performance in preventing the water from freezing in wintertime, when the temperature inside this train drops to around -20°C (Fig. 4)

　　Here is one more example. A CNTs-based road heating system has been in use in Sapporo Campus at the sidewalk near the main entrance of Hokkaido University. A CNT-coated heat-generating yarn tucked, with the help of a rubber mat, under the interlocked base material serves as the source of heat for snow-melting (Fig. 5).

Source: Bunshi FUGETSU | CRIS -Creative Reserch Institution- Hokkaido University

Related

2010-04-07

Nanoscale Atomic 'Black Holes'

Clipped from: Understanding tiny reactions | Harvard Gazette Online

Understanding tiny reactions

Cold atoms and nanotubes come together in atomic 'black hole'

Launched laser-cooled atoms are captured by a single, suspended, single-wall carbon nanotube charged to hundreds of volts. A captured atom spirals toward the nanotube (white path) and reaches the environs of the tube surface, where its valence electron (yellow) tunnels into the tube. The resulting ion (purple) is ejected and detected, and the dynamics at the nanoscale are sensitively probed.

Carbon nanotubes, long touted for applications in electronics and in materials, may also be the stuff of atomic-scale black holes.

Physicists at Harvard University have found that a high-voltage nanotube (a tiny tubelike structure) can cause cold atoms to spiral inward under dramatic acceleration before disintegrating violently. The physicists’ experiments, which are the first to demonstrate something akin to a black hole at atomic scale, are described in the current issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.

Clipped from: Cold atoms and nanotubes come together in an atomic 'black hole'

Cold Atoms and Nanotubes Come Together in an Atomic 'Black Hole'

"On a scale of nanometers, we create an inexorable and destructive pull similar to what black holes exert on matter at cosmic scales," says Lene Vestergaard Hau, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and of Applied Physics at Harvard. "As importantly for scientists, this is the first merging of cold-atom and nanoscale science, and it opens the door to a new generation of cold atom experiments and nanoscale devices."

Clipped from: Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 133002 (2010): Field Ionization of Cold Atoms near the Wall of a Single Carbon Nanotube

Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 133002 (2010) [4 pages]

Field Ionization of Cold Atoms near the Wall of a Single Carbon Nanotube

Anne Goodsell, Trygve Ristroph, J. A. Golovchenko, and Lene Vestergaard Hau

We observe the capture and field ionization of individual atoms near the side wall of a single suspended nanotube. Extremely large cross sections for ionization from an atomic beam are observed at modest voltages due to the nanotube’s small radius and extended length. The effects of the field strength on both the atomic capture and the ionization process are clearly distinguished in the data, as are prompt and delayed ionizations related to the locations at which they occur. Efficient and sensitive neutral atom detectors can be based on the nanotube capture and wall ionization processes.

Sources:

Related:

2010-03-13

New Way to Produce Electricity: Thermopower Waves in Carbon Nanotubes

Clipped from: BBC News - Nanometre 'fuses' for high-performance batteries

Nanometre 'fuses' for high-performance batteries

Minuscule tubes coated with a chemical fuel can act as a power source with 100 times more electrical power by weight than conventional batteries.

As these nano-scale "fuses" burn, they drive an electrical current along their length at staggering speeds.

The never-before-seen phenomenon could lead to a raft of energy applications.

Researchers reporting in Nature Materials say that unlike normal batteries, the nanotubes never lose their stored energy if left to sit.

Clipped from: Big power from tiny wires

Big power from tiny wires

New discovery shows carbon nanotubes can produce powerful waves that could be harnessed for new energy systems.

A carbon nanotube (shown in illustration) can produce a very rapid wave of power when it is coated by a layer of fuel and ignited, so that heat travels along the tube.

A previously unknown phenomenon

In the new experiments, each of these electrically and thermally conductive nanotubes was coated with a layer of a reactive fuel that can produce heat by decomposing. This fuel was then ignited at one end of the nanotube using either a laser beam or a high-voltage spark, and the result was a fast-moving thermal wave traveling along the length of the carbon nanotube like a flame speeding along the length of a lit fuse. Heat from the fuel goes into the nanotube, where it travels thousands of times faster than in the fuel itself. As the heat feeds back to the fuel coating, a thermal wave is created that is guided along the nanotube. With a temperature of 3,000 kelvins, this ring of heat speeds along the tube 10,000 times faster than the normal spread of this chemical reaction. The heating produced by that combustion, it turns out, also pushes electrons along the tube, creating a substantial electrical current.

Clipped from: YouTube - Nanotube fuses for energy

The never-before-seen phenomenon could lead to a raft of energy applications.
Researchers reporting in Nature Materials say that unlike normal batteries, the nanotubes never lose their stored energy if left to sit.

The team, led by Michael Strano of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, coated their nanotubes - cylinders just billionths of a metre across - with a chemical fuel known as cyclotrimethylene trinitramine.

Clipped from: Chemically driven carbon-nanotube-guided thermopower waves : Abstract : Nature Materials

Nature Materials
Published online: 7 March 2010 | doi:10.1038/nmat2714

Chemically driven carbon-nanotube-guided thermopower waves

Wonjoon Choi, Seunghyun Hong, Joel T. Abrahamson, Jae-Hee Han, Changsik Song, Nitish Nair, Seunghyun Baik & Michael S. Strano

Clipped from: MIT Discovers Thermopower Waves which Have Hundreds of Times the Energy by Weight of Lithium ion Batteries

Sources:

Related:

2009-12-14

Batteries of paper with nanotubes and nanowires

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk

Battery made of paper charges up

Batteries made from plain copier paper could make for future energy storage that is truly paper thin.

clipped from www.eetimes.com

Paper battery said to outperform lithium ion

PORTLAND, Ore. — A paper battery based on carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires could store an electric charge in a mobile device. Researchers also claim the new battery is disposable and that its shape could conform to the shape of different devices.

Bing Hu, a Stanford Univeristy post-doctoral fellow, applies special ink to ordinary paper, depositing nanotubes on the surface that can then be charged to create a battery.

clipped from www.stanford.edu

clipped from news.stanford.edu

At Stanford, nanotubes + ink + paper = instant battery

Dip an ordinary piece of paper into ink infused with carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires, and it turns into a battery or supercapacitor. Crumple the piece of paper, and it still works. Stanford researcher Yi Cui sees many uses for this new way of storing electricity.

clipped from www.stanford.edu

Nanomaterials Science and Engineering

7th of December 2009
Liangbing's paper on conductive paper battery and supercap was published in PNAS, and has been highlighted in the press, including in New York Times, Technology Review, Stanford Report, EE Times, and Scientific American.

clipped from www.youtube.com

Sources:

Super-Strong Carbon Nanotube Muscles

clipped from www.dailymail.co.uk

New 'muscle gel' that's tougher than steel could help scientists create super-strength robots

Muscle-flexing robots with superhuman strength could become a reality thanks to a new expanding material that is stronger than steel.

Scientists have created a gel that acts like muscle when charged with electricity but is far more powerful.

The 'aerogel' is almost as light as air, as stretchy as rubber, and stiffer than steel by weight.

A scene from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. The new 'aerogel' could help create a new generation of super-strength robots

clipped from www.cbc.ca

It may be light as air, but new artificial muscle is no wuss

At left is the artificial muscle with no voltage applied. When a voltage is applied, the material expands in width, as shown in the middle (room temperature) and right (high temperature) images.

clipped from blog.wired.com