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Spinning yarn from long carbon nanotube arrays

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Abstract

Spinning carbon nanotube (CNT) thread directly from 4–6 mm long aligned carbon nanotube arrays is reported here. The strength of carbon nanotube thread was improved by optimizing the chemical vapor deposition parameters for growing long aligned carbon nanotube arrays. The morphological and structural characterization of CNT arrays and threads were studied by Raman spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. After optimization of growth parameters threads were spun with diameters between 10 and 70 μm. We have achieved thread strength of about 280 MPa.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge Dr. Sergey Yarmolenko and Svetlana Fialkova from North Carolina A&T State University for providing the facilities to test the mechanical properties of the CNT threads. The authors are grateful to Mr. Doug Hurd for helping to set up the spinning machine. The financial support from the National Science Foundation through grants CMMI-0727250 and Dr. Shaochen Chen; CMS-0510823 and Dr. Shih-Chi Liu; Air Force for SBIR Contract No. FA8650-09-C-2908; NCA &T the Center for Advanced Material and Smart Structures and DURIP-Office of Naval Research are gratefully appreciated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical and Material Science Engineering, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, 45221-0012, USA

    Chaminda Jayasinghe, Supriya Chakrabarti & Vesselin Shanov

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, 45221-0072, USA

    Mark J. Schulz

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  1. Chaminda Jayasinghe
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  2. Supriya Chakrabarti
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  3. Mark J. Schulz
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  4. Vesselin Shanov
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Correspondence to Vesselin Shanov.

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Jayasinghe, C., Chakrabarti, S., Schulz, M.J. et al. Spinning yarn from long carbon nanotube arrays. Journal of Materials Research 26, 645–651 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2010.91

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2010.91

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