I find it astonishing how fast the pace of development is around carbon nanotubes. Now we have a viable yarn and a mat. These are both in a form that manufacturers are used to using. It almost sounds like fiberglass.
I wonder how they cut it? Anyway this product line is certainly an engineer’s dream.
June 16, 2009
Nanocomp Technologies Delivers 10 kilometers of CNT yarn to Fortune 100 aerospace customer; achieves 4-foot by 8-foot mat production breakthrough
Nanocomp Technologies, Inc., a developer of energy saving performance materials and component products from carbon nanotubes (CNTs), today announced it has produced and delivered 10 kilometers of its CTex™ CNT yarn to one of its Fortune 100 aerospace customers. Delivering long lengths of CNT yarn further solidifies Nanocomp’s position as the only U.S. commercial company to fabricate industrially relevant finished materials from carbon nanotubes. In addition, the Company is announcing today its new capability to deliver 4-foot by 8-foot CNT mats, the largest of their kind in the world.
Nanocomp’s fundamental breakthrough is its patent-pending method for high-volume production of very long CNTs (approximately one millimeter in length), and then processing the nanotubes into contiguous macrostructures. Over the past 18 months, the company has been distributing CNT yarn into the marketplace, recently delivering the 10 kilometer shipment to meet its customer’s volume and performance specifications.
“We are steadily proving to the world that nanotubes can deliver their game-changing properties in industrially useful product formats,” said Peter Antoinette, president and CEO of Nanocomp Technologies. “Perhaps most remarkable to us, however, is hearing the engineers from our most demanding customers talk about the many new design possibilities that have become available to them with Nanocomp’s products in the mix. The fact that these highly conductive products are lighter and stronger than aluminum, can be draped like a cloth or spun like a yarn or wire, and can tolerate even the harshest of operating environments solves many long-standing design objectives – particularly the challenges of weight reduction.”
Nanocomp is experiencing significant customer demand in the aerospace and aviation markets for nanotube materials to save weight in a variety of complex systems, as well as to provide electrostatic discharge (ESD) and electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding components. Most recently, the company received a number of DoD contracts to further develop its state-of-the-art technology as Nanocomp progresses toward advanced manufacturing processes and wide-scale commercialization.
