University of Tokyo Aims for Mass Production Process for Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes

At nano tech 2010 held this past week in Japan, the University of Tokyo showed its as-produced carbon nanotubes, suspensions of carbon nanotubes and transparent electrodes of carbon nanotubes  

University of Tokyo is developing mass production techniques for single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNT).  Transparent electrodes have increasing demands in displays, touch panels, and solar cells.  They intend to mass-produce nanotubes from abundant "carbon" and fabricate flexible transparent electrodes.

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have attracted great attention owing to their excellent properties and various potential applications such as integrated circuits, displays, batteries, and composites. However, practical applications are limited by the immature synthetic method as seen in their price (~$1,000/g-SWCNT).

Transparent electrodes are indispensable for photoelectric conversion. Indium tin oxide (ITO) has an excellent property, but when one considers the future applications to flexible devices and large-scale demands in solar cells, developing alternative materials is very important. The University of Tokyo project aims to establish mass-production of SWCNTs and to develop SWCNT flexible transparent electrodes.

The University of Tokyo displayed following items: nanometer-thick & sub-millimeter-long nanotubes synthesized by fluidized bed, a suspension of those well-characterized nanotubes and flexible transparent electrodes printed on PET films.

R&D of Mass-Production of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes and Their Transparent Electrodes

Suguru Noda, Department of Chemical System Engineering, The University of Tokyo

7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan, 113-8656   

TEL : +81-3-5841-7330 　FAX : +81-3-5841-7332　

Email : noda@chemsys.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

URL : ymfs.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/