Chinese engineers have grown high-purity nanotubes

    

Researchers from Peking University, raised a batch of single-walled carbon nanotubes, having 92% purity.

Standard fabrication techniques are tiny cylinders allow to obtain a mixture of tubes with different geometry of the atoms and electrical properties. Yan Li with colleagues was able to achieve the cultivation of nanomaterials with high degree of purity. Lee says their team has found the "right recipe" for catalyst nanocrystals, which are used in the growth of nanotubes. Best purity nanotubes achieved was previously 55% . Chinese researchers used tungsten-cobalt catalyst that is stable at high temperature, necessary for the synthesis of nanotubes. Lee explains that the atoms of tungsten and cobalt are essential for obtaining high-purity nanotubes.

"Lee and his team made a major breakthrough," says Mohan Sankaran, a chemical engineer who studies the growth of nanotubes at Case Western Reserve University. "Their approach will help realize the great potential of carbon nanotubes". Researchers believe that they can increase the nanotube purity to above 99% by further manipulating the composition, structure and size of the catalysts.

Source: nauka24news.ru/