Advanced Materials Portfolio

Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology

What are Nanomaterials?

A result of precision engineering and the "science of the impossibly small," nanomaterials are materials with very small features on the order of 1-100 nm. For reference, 1 nm is ~4-5 orders of magnitude smaller than the diameter of a human hair, or approximately equivalent to the length of 4 atoms lined up in a row. The effects of atomic physics or quantum mechanics are much more evident in the properties of nanomaterials than bulk materials. One advantage of this is materials with very different or enhanced properties compared with similar bulk materials. One area of nanotechnology CRG is currently involved in is carbon nanotube (CNT) and carbon nanofiber (CNF) composites and adhesives.

Carbon Nanotube or Nanofiber Composites and Adhesives

CNT is a tubular form of carbon having a diameter as small as 1 nm and length as long as several microns. (Larger nanotubes with diameters in the range of 80-200 nm are referred to as carbon nanofibers.) Due to its seamless structure, covalent bonding, and extensive π overlap, CNT provides physical properties that are unmatched by other materials. These properties include the stiffness of diamond, a Young’s modulus 1½ times that of carbon fiber, anisotropic thermal conductivity ~50 times greater than that of silver, electrical conductivity ~6 orders of magnitude higher than copper, and a room-temperature mobility higher than that of any known material.

CRG's Nanomaterial Expertise

Offering fundamental expertise in nanoprocessing, CRG has developed processing techniques for CNT and CNF cleaning, functionalizaton, and dispersion that allow many of these properties to be incorporated in a broad range of polymer systems, from epoxies to our own shape memory polymer (SMP) resins. Possible applications of these materials include conducting adhesives, shielding coatings, and lightweight, high-performance structural materials.