Spinnable carbon nanotubes and technical yarns produced by these special fibers

Abstract

Carbon nanotubes are highly special materials having low density but high strength and modulus, high electrical and thermal conductivity and stability at relatively low and high temperatures. While these materials are produced in powder particle form generally, there is also few research centers focusing on production of these advanced materials as spinnable nanofiber form, which is a specific form of carbon nanotubes. These materials, that can be named as spinnable carbon nanotubes or carbon nanotube fibers, are special not only for being extremely fine, having high strength and conductivity but also for their easy conversion into yarns that include 100% carbon nanotubes by spinning directly. Owing to their superior properties, once they spun as twisted yarns, then these materials would have many interesting application areas from actuators to solar cells, from weavable anodes for flexible Li-ion batteries to super conductors. However, available information on carbon nanotube fibers and yarns produced from these are limited both in the world and our country. Therefore, production of spinnable carbon nanotubes and conversion of these special materials into technical yarns along with their general properties are investigated in this work.