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    Scalable Formation of Carbon Nanotube Films Containing Highly Aligned Whiskerlike Crystallites

    Year: 2013

    Journal: IInd. Eng. Chem. Res., 2013, 52 (26), pp 8705–8713, 20131119

    Authors: Anson W. K. Ma Jaewook Nam, Natnael Behabtu, Francesca Mirri, Colin C. Young, Budhadipta Dan, Dmitri Tsentalovich, Mainak Majumder, Li Song, Yachin Cohen, Pulickel M. Ajayan, Matteo Pasquali

    Organizations: Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, ‡The Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, and ∥Department of Chemistry, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, United States; Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering & Institute of Materials Science, University of Connecticut, 97 N. Eagleville Road, Storrs, Connecticut 06103, United States; School of Chemical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 440-746, Korea; Department of Chemical Engineering, Technion−Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel

    We report the creation of carbon nanotube films from superacids by a scalable process, where film morphology is controlled by initial fluid phases. These films were formed by dip-coating biphasic (isotropic + liquid crystalline) carbon nanotube (CNT) chlorosulfonic acid solutions. Chlorosulfonic acid has low volatility and is therefore removed by solvent extraction instead of conventional drying processes. At intermediate concentrations, the solutions contain liquid crystalline domains which stretch and align streamwise during dip-coating. These elongated domains further act as “nucleating sites” for large, aligned whiskerlike crystallites during subsequent solvent extraction. The final films contain highly aligned CNT crystallites embedded in a mesh of randomly oriented CNTs.