14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists have been fascinated with carbon nanotubes ever since the material was first obtained, and they have been looking for cheaper and more effective was of producing it ever since. Now, researchers at MIT managed to do just that, while at the same time making the process a lot more environmentally-friendly.
Nanotubes, as their name implies, are tubes made up of carbon atoms, which exist at the nanoscale, where lengths are measured in billionths of a meter. The walls of these tubes resemble chicken wires, as they have a hexagonal pattern.
The tubes have remarkable physical and chemical properties, which allows for them to be used in fields such as electronics and medicine. Space experts are also heralding nanotubes as a potential material for constructing space elevators. Basically, your imagination is the limit to what can be accomplished with the tubes.
They are prized for their electrical properties, immense strength and their minute sizes, but existing production methods are responsible for releasing several hundred tons of dangerous chemicals annually.
These substance include, but are not limited to hazardous air pollutants and greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2). These chemicals accelerate the warming effect our planet is currently subjected to, bringing about devastating changes to the environment.
Aware of this, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) decided to try to innovate the carbon nanotube (CNT) production process. They managed to do so by eliminating a step in the process that was responsible for releasing most harmful chemicals.
The team says that emissions were reduced more than 10 times over with this method. In some instances, the reduction had a factor of 100. Scientists were also successful in reducing energy consumption associated with CNT manufacture by up to 50 percent.
“We were able to do all of this and still have good CNT growth,”” explains the leader of the research, Desiree Plata. She conducted the work between 2007 and 2009, when she was as a PhD student with MIT’s joint program with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Plata is now a visiting assistant professor in the MIT Departments of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE).
Funding for the new investigation came from the Arunas and Pam Chesonis Ignition Grant via the MIT Earth Systems Initiative, the WHO, and the MIT Martin Society of Fellows for Sustainability.
Additional funding came froim the Nanomanufacturing Program of the US National Science Foundation (NSF), Lockheed Martin Nanosystems and the University of Michigan Department of Mechanical Engineering and College of Engineering.