Vanderbilt University researchers have discovered a technique to cost-effectively convert carbon dioxide from the air into a type of carbon nanotubes that is “more valuable than any other material ever made.” Carbon nanotubes are super-materials that can be stronger than steel and more conductive than copper. So despite much research, why aren’t they used in applications ranging from batteries to tires? Answer: The high manufacturing costs and extremely expensive price.
The price ranges from $100–200 per kilogram for the “economy class” carbon nanotubes with larger diameters and poorer properties, up to $100K per kilogram and above for the “first class” carbon nanotubes — ones with a single wall, the smallest diameters, and the most amazing properties.

Nanocomp Technologies is producing sheets of carbon nanotubes that measure 1m by 2m and promising slabs 10m2 in area. The first applications will probably be as electrical conductors in planes and satellites to replace copper wire and save weight. Saving weight would save fuel. Nanocomp’s materials possess a unique combination of high strength-to-weight ratio, electrical and thermal conductivity, as well as flame resistance that exceeds those of many other advanced materials by orders of magnitude.

2022-10-28: Behold Carbon Nano Onions

By microwaving fish waste, you can quickly and efficiently create carbon nano-onions (CNOs)—a unique nanoform of carbon that has applications in energy storage and medicine. CNOs are nanostructures with spherical carbon shells in a concentric layered structure similar to an onion. They have “drawn extensive attention worldwide in terms of energy storage and conversion” because of their “exceptionally high electrical and thermal conductivity, as well as large external surface area”
Though CNOs were first reported in the 1980s, conventional methods of manufacturing them have required high temperatures, a vacuum and a lot of time and energy. Other techniques are expensive and call for complex catalysts or dangerous acidic or basic conditions. The newly discovered method requires only 1 step—microwave pyrolysis of fish scales extracted from fish waste—and can be done within 10 seconds.

How exactly the fish scales are converted into CNOs is unclear, though the team thinks it has to do with how collagen in the fish scales can absorb enough microwave radiation to quickly increase in temperature. This leads to pyrolysis, or thermal decomposition, which causes the collagen to break down into gasses. These gasses then support the creation of CNOs.

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