Due to its unique electronic structure and physicochemical properties, the application of carbon nanotubes in various fields has attracted the attention of scientists from various countries. Cientifica Ltd has recently made such a prediction that the market demand for nanotubes and nanofibers will soar from approximately US$173.7 million in 2005 to US$3.62 billion in 2010, with an average annual growth rate of more than 60%. Frost & Sullivan believes that only the market demand for carbon nanotubes will reach 540 million U.S. dollars by 2007. With the advancement of production technology, the price of carbon nanotubes will drop significantly in the next 10 years and gradually enter commercial applications.
"Chemical Market Report" published an article last week that the future application of carbon nanotubes will be ubiquitous. Researchers are currently conducting tests for various uses of carbon nanotubes, including electric plugs, solar cells, and breast cancer treatment. In addition, carbon nanotubes can also be used to make high-strength carbon fiber materials. Composite materials made of carbon nanotubes will be widely used in civil engineering and construction.
Carbon nanotubes are a one-dimensional quantum material with a unique structure. The potential advantages possessed by carbon nanotubes themselves have determined that it will have significant development prospects in the fields of physics, chemistry, and materials science. For example, in the field of materials science, the length of a carbon nanotube is several thousand times its diameter, and it is called 'super fiber'.
The technical service agency of Bayer MaterialScience AG, Germany, said in November last year that it will begin to sell its carbon nanotubes under the trade name Baytubes at a price of 100 euros ($120) per kilogram. The person in charge of the carbon nanotube project of Bayer stated that the purity of the product is more than 99%, and the production cost has been greatly reduced. The person in charge explained that the addition of a small amount of Baytubes' carbon nanotubes to a plastic fender made of plastic can save pretreatment of environmentally friendly water-soluble coatings or powder coatings. Bayer said that the product can also be used for anti-static packaging film materials, electronic components, computer and mobile phone shielding electromagnetic interference shield.
In 2004, GE Corporation made a nano-diode by connecting two carbon nanotubes with different electrical properties. In August last year, GE said that it has improved the carbon nano-diode and can work under theoretical limits. GE believes that this breakthrough can be compared with the technological advancement that transistors replace electron tubes. In addition, Applied Nanotech and Shimane Masuda Electronics will start trial production of 25-inch LCD TVs using carbon nanotubes. The partners said that the display screen made of carbon nanotubes will have better quality and more image quality than traditional LCD screens. The perspective, but the power consumption is smaller.
According to experts from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, carbon nanotubes may also be used as an alternative to silicon in semiconductor wafers. If the production cost of nanotubes is further reduced, it can also be used in large quantities to produce solar cells to obtain cheap electricity. Researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Air Force Research Laboratory in the United States are also experimenting with carbon nanotube-made ignition systems that may replace traditional spark plugs. Rice researchers at the Rice University of America are also conducting tests for the diagnosis of carbon nanotubes and the treatment of breast lumps.
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