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 Chapter 1

Introductory Chapter: Carbon Nanotubes and Their

Applications

Mohammed Muzibur Rahman and

Abdullah Mohamed Asiri

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

[Link]

1. Introduction

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is smart carbon materials which significantly utilized for the poten-
tial applications, large-scale synthesis, structural evaluation, and physical as well as chemi-
cal properties of carbon nanotubes and/or related conjugated carbon materials. Here, the
various areas of carbon nanotubes (CNT) related topics including carbon materials for their
various synthesis methodologies, total morphological, orientational, elemental, structural
evaluations and characterizations as well as potential applications in different fields including
bio-materials as well as nanomaterials for scaffolds as promising cell carrier for tissue engi-
neering, designing antimicrobial polymeric bio-composite mats and natural medicinal plant
polymer for cosmeceutical applications, carbon nanotubes/silicon composites to materials
of Li secondary batteries, CNT composites with metal oxides as well as hierarchical crystal-
line nanotube on the cooperative Phenomena of Functional Molecular Group as the Target of
Expression of New Physical and chemical Properties were discussed in this chapter.

2. Literature review

Substantial nanotube discovery which originated to existent in 1991 was CNTs. That bucky-
balls are spherical and round, nanotubes are tubic cylinders which are not folded round to
generate to sphere [1]. CNTs are confined of C-atom connected in hexagonal shapes, with
every C-atom covalently-bonded to three other C-atoms. CNTs have average dia. as lower as
<1.0 nm and sizes up to several centimeters. A carbon nanotube is a long-tube-shaped carbon-
material, made of only carbon, having a diameter measuring in nanometer scale. A nanometer

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative
Attribution License ([Link] which permits unrestricted use,
Commons Attribution License ([Link] which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
4 Carbon Nanotubes - Recent Progress

is one/billionth of a meter, or about 10,000 times smaller than a normal human hair. CNTs
are exceptional and unique because the bonding between the carbon-atoms is very strong
and the tubes can have extreme characteristic aspect ratios. Generally CNTs are allotropes of
carbon with a cylindrical tubic nanostructure. These tubic-cylindrical carbon molecules have
unusual properties, which are valuable for nanotechnology, nano-electronics, optics-electronics
and other fields of nanomaterials science and technology. Due to the nanomaterial’s extraor-
dinary strength and stiffness, nanotubes have been created with L-to-D (Length-to-diameter)
ratio [2] considerably bigger than for any other modified material. Additionally, due to CNTs
exceptional characteristic property such as thermal conductivity, mechanical, and electrical,
CNTs find potential applications as additives to different structural nanomaterials [3, 4]. For
large number of potential applications with CNTs, the challenge lies in the alignment and
ordering of CNTs to take advantages of their highly anisotropic thermal, electrical, physical
characteristics. CNTs have emerged as a new category of nano-sized particles for incorpora-
tion into various liquid crystal systems, attracting favorable interest from both basic level
science research and as well as industrial applications [1]. As a result of the exceptional prop-
erties of CNTs, the novel materials can be envisioned that exhibit property enhancements at
lower concentration than in conventional composite technology [5]. CNTs also represent a
promising material due to their unique physicochemical properties: their nanoscale needle
shape, high chemical stability, thermal conductivity, and mechanical strength, which con-
fer an advantage in the fabrication of field emitters. The utilization of CNTs relies on their
electronic properties since they can be either metallic or semi-conductive, depending on the
geometric configuration of a graphene sheet rolled up as a tube (i.e., diameter and chiral
angle) [6–9]. Global attention on CNTs also attracted by many researchers have evaluated
the extraordinary properties of CNTs toward development of nanocomposites and sheets
holding highly oriented CNTs with enhanced electrical and mechanical properties. Exert of
electrical field to a matrix containing CNTs can also lead to expansion of a highly oriented
network from the negative electrode toward the positive electrode, which acting as a pathway
for transferring current from the negative electrode toward the positive electrode [10–14]. The
CNT arrays or vertically aligned CNTs itself is an extensive area of research apart from its
originator CNT. As one can expect the complexity to grown long continuous CNTs [15, 16],
scientist and researchers have derived out a brilliantly new idea of CNT yarn. The idea of
aligning carbon nanotubes into arrays was perceived in 1994 by Ajayan et al. [17] by cutting
thin slices of the nanotube-polymer composites. One of the most promising CNT applications
of the field emission is an electron source. Lots of electronic devices are based on electron
sources which are the most crucial component served as state-of-art vacuum nano-electronics
and emerging novel devices in nowadays, such as field emission displays, emerging sensor,
energy storage equipment, scanning ultrafast electron microscopes, X-ray generators, free
electron lasers, Terra Hartz sources and so on [18–20]. Recently, such electron sources have
intrigued a strong interest and encouraged the further studies of pulsed electron emission,
opening the door to high-tech novel devices. For example, pulsed electron emission opens a
way toward the time resolved electron microscopy, because electrical gating and source con-
trol enable time resolution down to picoseconds, while using optical control enables creation
of electron pulses with duration down to tens of femtoseconds. Such dense and short electron
bunches can become a popular platform for material and device imaging, inspection, and
 Introductory Chapter: Carbon Nanotubes and Their Applications 5
[Link]

failure analysis. They would enable exciting technological developments like four-dimen-
sional time resolved electron microscopy, spectroscopy, holography, single-electron sources,
and carrier envelope phase detection [21, 22]. Many other investigations in terms of electrode
materials are focused on CNTs and their modified or hybrid materials. Compared with alu-
minum foil or copper foil, metal-free current collector is a research hotspot, CNT film or
cellulose papers used as negative electrode or anode current collector was applied in flexible
lithium ion battery in many researches [23, 24]. Different modern and advanced techniques
have been developed for exploring the mechanical properties of individual carbon materials
or CNTs. One method for measuring the Young’s modulus of a CNT is to fabricate a nano-
tube beam that is clamped at each end to a ceramic membrane (or otherwise supported) and
to measure its vertical deflection versus the force applied at a point midway along its length
[25]. The atomic force microscope is a natural and convenient means for studying the Young’s
modulus of CNTs, because it allows measurement of the deflection of a sample as a function
of applied force when used in contact mode [26].

Furthermore, CNTs, which have potential in chemical stability, thermal and electrical conduc-
tivity, mechanical strength, and flexibility, may be the best alternative materials for applica-
tion in flexible transparent conductive electrodes. Actually, CNTs in some applications, which
have low conductivity regardless of transmittance, are being commercialized. The rough sur-
face of CNT films due to their tubular structures brings about a serious problem in the appli-
cation of organic light-emitting diodes [27]. In CNTs, a relatively high contact resistance of
the tube-tube junction may lead to insufficient sheet resistance [28]. Regarding this issue, the
separation method of metallic and semiconducting components in CNTs by controlling the
diameter and chirality of CNTs has been introduced in this book. CNTs have an affinity to
also aggregate owing to the van der Waals attractive interaction between their sidewalls [29].
This tube-to-tube contacts results hydrophobic nature of CNTs which is responsible for their
poor solubility in water, and also incompatible with a majority of solvents [30]. As a result,
CNTs are precipitated in solvent, which the lack of solubility and the difficulty of manipulat-
ing them in solvents limit the development of CNT-based devices or composites of interest for
new applications. In order to obtain fine dispersion in the selected solutions specially water,
it is important to break the cohesion of aggregated CNTs. Development of efficient processes
and chemical treatments that are able to control the quality of the CNT samples and to induce
both their dispersion and partial or complete de-bundling remains highly challenging.

3. Conclusion

Finally, the growth of dense and long CNT arrays and their application in spinning threads
or CNT yarns, non-homogeneous electron emitter plane with large FE current fluctuations
and a short emission life-time, LC-CNT surface interaction lead to pinning orientational order
uniformly along the CNT, aligned-CNT network within the matrix via electric fields, tensile
strength and strength distribution of CNTs, hybrid-types of CNTs-based electronic devices,
polymer wrapping methods by disperse CNT using gelatin for making decomposable bio-
polymer, electrochemical capacitors based on CNTs, hydrogenation and dehydrogenation
6 Carbon Nanotubes - Recent Progress

studies of CNTs functionalized with BH3, etc. are discussed. Here, we believe that it offers
a broad field of existing developments in recent development of carbon nanotube technol-
ogy research and an excellent introduction to preparation, synthesis, potential characteristic
properties in field of materials and composites for their potential applications. This work
aims to bridge the gap between undergraduate, graduate, and researches in carbon materi-
als, nanomaterials, polymers, biomaterials, nanocomposites, catalysis as well as bio-medical
sciences, in order to initiate scientist/researchers into different carbon nanotubes study in as
straight-forward way as conceivable and also introduce the researcher to the opportunities
offered by the science and technological fields. We hope, it will offer the evaluation of the
state-of-the-art methods and advances of carbon researches and bio-science and nanotechnol-
ogies. Distinguished scientist were significantly contributed to present their novel ideas and
recent advanced development in the field of carbon materials, carbon nanotubes, or carbon
nanotube conjugated related materials in various research and practical fields. The prime goal
is to introduce audience about CNTs for the students, researchers, technologists, physicists,
chemists, biologists, engineers and professionals who are interested in carbon nanotubes and
associated carbon related materials.

Author details

Mohammed Muzibur Rahman* and Abdullah Mohamed Asiri

*Address all correspondence to: mmrahmanh@[Link]

Center of Excellence for Advanced Materials Research (CEAMR) and Chemistry

Department, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

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