Rice-led experiments demonstrate solid-state carbon nanotube
‘templates’
(June 15, 2015) A
simple way to turn carbon nanotubes into valuable graphene nanoribbons may be
to grind them, according to research led by Rice University.
The trick, said Rice materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan, is
to mix two types of chemically modified nanotubes. When they come into contact
during grinding, they react and unzip, a process that until now has depended
largely on reactions in harsh chemical solutions.
The research by Ajayan and his international collaborators
appears in Nature Communications.