Quick-cook nanotubes

摘要

It's as quick and easy as making popcorn: carbon nanotubes can be produced by microwaving a mixture of compounds for 15-30 seconds under ambient conditions.Microwave irradiation heats one of the constituents, a conductive material such as indium tin oxide, to above 1,100 ℃. This raises the temperature of the accompanying ferrocene, an iron-based organic compound. As a result, the ferrocene decomposes into an organic molecule that serves as the nanotube precursor, and into iron -which functions as a catalyst for nanotube synthesis. Xinyu Zhang at Auburn University in Alabama and his colleagues made nanotubes several micrometres in length (pictured), which they then deposited on filler materials such as fly ash and glass fibres. Tests showed that the addition of the modified fillers to an epoxy-resin-based foam improved its fracture toughness significantly.