Down the tube

摘要

Researchers in London have developed a cheaper way of producing high-quality carbon nan-otubes in larger quantities than existing methods. A team from the London Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN) has licensed the process, which separates nanotubes into usable quantities without damaging them, to Linde. Carbon nanotubes are one-atom-thick cylinders of carbon that have a range of applications - from strengthening material struc- tures to improving the efficiency of solar panels - but are difficult to produce in large quantities. 'It needs to be cheaper because at the moment it's ￡lbn per kilo, which is not very plausible,' said LCN's co-director Milo Shaffer. 'But it doesn't need to be incredibly cheap, because a lot of applications use quite a small amount of material.