Skip to main content

Carbon Nanofibers and Their Applications

Carbon nanofibers are cylindrical nanostructures with graphene layers arranged as stacked cones, cups or plates. Carbon NanoFibers (Purity 96%, Outside Diameter: 190-590nm) could be defined as sp2-based linear filaments with diameter of ca. 100 nm that are characterized by flexibility and their aspect ratio. Materials in a form of fiber are of great practical and scientific importance. The combination of high specific area, flexibility, and high mechanical strength allow nanofibers to be used in our daily life as well as in fabricating tough composites for vehicles and aerospace.
As we mentioned Carbon NanoFibers can be used in various areas. Now let's check some examples of these areas. For example their remarkable properties, combined with the unique low temperature deterministic growth process makes carbon nanofibers very suitable for semiconductor packaging applications as well as building advanced capacitors.
Due to their metallic nature carbon nanofibers, when grown on metallic surfaces, provide a large increase ineffective surface area per footprint. As a result, CNF have also been implemented as electrode material for two types of capacitors, namely decoupling capacitors and supercapacitors. Supercapacitors are electrochemical capacitors with high power density. Their life time is 100 times larger than Lithium batteries and their performance is largely dictated by the effective area of the electrode materials, its structure. Historically active carbon has been used as electrode material, however more recently flexible sheets of electrospun carbon nanofibers are considered prospective electrodes materials for supercapacitors because of their well interconnected pores, high mechanical and electrochemical stability.
Vertically aligned Carbon NanoFibers have also great potential in nanoelectromechanical system because a single carbon nanofiber can be grown up to a few micron long, standing alone vertically aligned at controlled position which can be addressed easily. The long single carbon nanofiber can be bent easily by applying low electric field. The fiber could bear the 900 bend and came back to original position on switching electric field off.
Carbon nanofibers can also be used in biomedical applications. For example researchers are using carbon nanofibers to delivery therapeutic drugs. They have developed an elastic material that is embedded with needle like carbon nanofibers. The material is intended to be used as balloons which are inserted next diseased tissue, and then inflated. When the balloon is inflated the carbon, nanofibers penetrate diseased cells and delivery therapeutic drugs.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Carbon Nanotube Threads

Since its discovery, carbon nanotube (CNT) has attracted many interests in different technology fields due to its extraordinary properties. Properties such as, high strength, great electrical and thermal conductivity, light weight and flexibility made CNT one of the best materials for wide range of applications. However, from its name it can be understood that CNT is a nanoscale material which is very small to be applied for the production of daily products. Researchers all around the world are working on finding methods and techniques which could produce new materials with the extraordinary properties of CNT. Image retrieved from:  https://worldindustrialreporter.com/strong-light-flexible-carbon-nanotubes-threads-with-ultrahigh-conductivity/ One of these research is focusing on the production of high strength threads that can be used in the manufacturing of fabrics, cables and ropes. An international group of scientists were able to produce a flexible conductive thread th...

Multi Walled Carbon Nanotube Dispersions

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs)  have attracted enormous attention in recent years due to its unique physical, electronic, optical and potential applications in materials science and nanotechnology. The van der Waals interaction between tubes, however, makes CNTs aggregate in most organic solvents and aqueous solutions, which is the major limitation of their practical applications.Various approaches have been studied to alter the CNT surface to promote the dispersion of individual nanotubes and prevent their reaggregation. On the basis of this widely accepted viewpoint, numerous techniques such as covalent bonding, surfactant coating and polymer wrapping have been developed for surface modification or sidewall functionalization.These methods, however, are complicated, time-consuming and cause permanent damage to the CNT structure and properties of the surface, which produces residues of the dispersion agent for the final product. Figure: Single Walled Carbon Nanotube (SWCNT) It ha...

Magnesium Oxide Nanoparticles/Nanopowder and Applications

General Information about Magnesium Oxide Magnesium oxide which has the chemical formula of MgO, is a white hygroscopic solid mineral that occurs naturally as periclase and is a source of Magnesium. It is a white powder at room temperature. Magnesium Oxide has very high melting point (2825  o C) and boiling point (3600  o C).                                                                                                                                                                                Magnesium Oxide Nanoparticles/Nanopowder an...