Nanotubes: Knot just for miniature work.Individual carbon nanotubes See nanotube. are too small to see without a powerful microscope. A new technique, however, can spin carbon nanotubes into ribbons and threads visible to the naked eye. Designers might someday use the superstrong fibers--which they can bend and even tie into knots--to make tough but lightweight composite materials composite material or composite, any material made from at least two discrete substances, such as concrete. Many materials are produced as composites, such as the fiberglass-reinforced plastics used for automobile bodies and boat hulls, but the , energy-converting devices, and new generations of electric cables, says Philippe Poulin of the Paul Pascal Research Center in Pessac, France. In the spinning process, Poulin and his colleagues report in the Nov. 17 SCIENCE, they first dispersed single-walled carbon nanotubes in water. Then, the team injects this fluid from a syringe syringe /sy·ringe/ (si-rinj´) (sir´inj) an instrument for injecting liquids into or withdrawing them from any vessel or cavity. into a polymer-containing solution, a process that causes the nanotubes to aggregate and align. Ray H. Baughman of Honeywell International in Morristown, N.J., and his colleagues have attempted to improve the spinning process by using especially pure carbon nanotubes made with a new technique called the high-pressure carbon monoxide carbon monoxide, chemical compound, CO, a colorless, odorless, tasteless, extremely poisonous gas that is less dense than air under ordinary conditions. It is very slightly soluble in water and burns in air with a characteristic blue flame, producing carbon dioxide; process. One goal for Baughman's group is to use these nanotube A carbon molecule that resembles a cylinder made out of chicken wire one to two nanometers in diameter by any number of millimeters in length. Accidentally discovered by a Japanese researcher at NEC in 1990 while making Buckyballs, they have potential use in many applications. fibers to make artificial muscles. |
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