Capillarity-driven assembly of two-dimensional cellular carbon nanotube foams
- *Department of Materials Science and Engineering and ‡The Howard P. Isermann Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180
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Communicated by Robert J. Silbey, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, February 2, 2004 (received for review July 29, 2003)
Abstract
Capillary forces arising during the evaporation of liquids from dense carbon nanotube arrays are used to reassemble the nanotubes into two-dimensional contiguous cellular foams. The stable nanotube foams can be elastically deformed, transferred to other substrates, or floated out to produce free-standing macroscopic fabrics. The lightweight cellular foams made of condensed nanotubes could have applications as shock-absorbent structural reinforcements and elastic membranes. The ability to control the length scale, orientation, and shape of the cellular structures and the simplicity of the assembly process make this a particularly attractive system for studying pattern formation in ordered media.
Footnotes
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↵ § To whom correspondence may be addressed at: Department of Material Science and Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, MRC 142, 110 8th Street, Troy, NY 12180. E-mail: ajayan{at}rpi.edu. ¶To whom correspondence may be addressed at: Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 110 8th street, Troy, NY 12180. E-mail: kaner{at}rpi.edu.
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↵ † Present address: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Center for Applied Information Technology and Learning, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803.
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Abbreviation: MWNT, multiwalled nanotube.
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↵ ∥ The wall thickness of the MWNTs may influence the value of the bending modulus; the wall thickness is ≈10 nm for the nanotubes used in this study.
- Copyright © 2004, The National Academy of Sciences
