The market for single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) is set to take off as production capacities increase and materials price drops to commercially acceptable levels.
Owing to impressive mechanical, structural and electronic properties, single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) are widely researched, and among the variety of semiconducting nanomaterials that have been discovered over the past two decades, remain uniquely well suited for applications in high-performance electronics, sensors and other devices. According to OCSiAl, just 0.01% of SWCNT improves the properties of 70% of industrial materials.
SWNTs were independently discovered in early 1993 by scientists at IBM Almaden Research Center and at NEC in Japan. The IBM and NEC groups each found that transition metals co-vaporized with carbon catalyze the formation of SWCNT with a narrow range of diameters around 1 nm. Cobalt was used at IBM and iron at NEC. The results of the two groups were reported in back-to-back papers in the June 17, 1993 issue of the technical journal Nature1 2.
Figure 1: Schematic of single-walled carbon nanotube.
Image credit: Nantero.
SWCNTs exhibit important electric properties that are not shared by multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT).3 They are also more pliable than MWNTs, yet more difficult to produce cost-effectively, limiting their use to niche/high-priced applications. Properties include:
- Electrical (extremely high in current density)
- Thermal (comparable in specific thermal conductivity to diamonds)
- Optical (emit light in an optical communication band of wavelengths)
- Hydrogen storage capability
- Metal catalyst supporting capability.
Applications
Large-scale industrial production of SWCNTs has been initiated, promising new market opportunities in transparent conductive films, transistors, sensors and memory devices.4 SWCNTs are regarded as one of the most promising candidates to utilized as building blocks in next generation electronics, and superior to graphene. However, the most advanced opportunities demand the ability to form perfectly aligned, horizontal arrays of purely semiconducting, chemically pristine SWCNTs.
SWCNTs possess many unique properties, which are advantageous for a wide variety of applications, including stretchable electronics. They have exceptionally high Young’s modulus of elasticity and tensile strength, and are the strongest known material. The porosity and specific surface area of SWCNT films are very large, and they possess high transparency and flexibility. In addition, SWCNTs can withstand extremely high currents making them an ideal replacement for copper and aluminium in fast-integrated charge/discharge circuits. Main target markets for SWCNTs are lithium-ion batteries, elastomers, plastics, transparent conductive films, composite materials and rubber. Applications that have been identified with potentially the greatest economic return are:
- Printed electronics and sensors
- Printed batteries
- Printed supercapacitors
- Micro supercapacitors
- SWCNT anode additives
- Biosensors
- Thermally tolerant plastics
- Wiring and cables
- SCWNT wafers
- SWCNT electrodes
- Flexible solar cells
- Rubber additives
- SWCNT Rubber tire reinforcement
- SWCNT-silicon hybrid solar cells.
Electronics
SWNT-TCFs demonstrate great potential in electronic devices due to their properties such as flexibility, stretchability and excellent electronic and mechanical properties.5 Among the various choices of materials for printed and flexible electronics, SWNTs are unique in the sense that they can be either metallic or semiconducting.
The main opportunity for SWCNTs lies in flexible, stretchable and wearable electronics, as they offer significantly better performance than organic semiconductors and are easier to process than a-Si or polysilicon. Electronic devices that are fabricated on flexible substrates for application in flexible displays, electronic paper, smart packages, skin-like sensors, wearable electronics, implantable medical implements etc. is a fast-growing market. Their future development depends greatly on the exploitation of advanced materials such as SWCNTs and graphene.
IBM Research has benchmarked the average performance and the variability of SWCNT transistors against state-of-the-art silicon technologies, and found that chip level simulations indicate that CNT transistors are the most promising candidate for high-performance electronics at 5 nm technology node, compared to both silicon devices and other emerging technologies.6 They have demonstrated the successful sorting of SWCNTs based on their electronic types to a purity level above 99.95% as verified by direct electrical measurements. Those sorted CNTs can be assembled into high-density and well-aligned arrays for device fabrication.
Production
Annual production volume of SCWNTs in 2015 was approximately 1-2 tons, mainly for R&D purposes, due to cost and also the lack of commercially available methods for mass production. Demand is likely to increase significantly with the development by OCSiAl and Zeon Corporation of low-cost, mass produced SWCNTs.7 OCSiAl has developed a technology for commercial-scale production of SWCNTs, with a predicted capacity of 30-40 tons per annum (200kg produced in 2015).8 Price is $2000 per kg, a significant reduction on widely available prices (> $100,000 kg). OCSiAl has identified a potential market for SWNTs of 145,000 tons per annum.
Figure 2: Single-walled carbon nanotubes.
Image credit: OCSiAl.
OCSiAl
OCSiAl claims to be the first company to succeed in transforming SWCNTs into economically viable technologies and successfully commercialized end products. The company state that their scalable synthesis technology enables the production of high-purity nanotubes (80%) at a price 75 times lower than other techniques. According to the company they command a global market share of almost 90% of SWCNTs. OCSiAl plans to increase production capacity to 60 tonnes in 2017, 1000 tonnes by 2020, and 3000 tonnes by 2022. Besides high-purity TUBALL nanotubes, at the Nano Tech 2017 trade show in Japan, OCSiAl unveiled several new products:
- Superconcentrated TUBALL MATRIX
- TUBALL FOIL, a foil with a nanotube coating less than 50 nanometres thick, for use in batteries
- TUBALL PAPER, an ultra-light, conductive, and durable material for lightweight applications
The company has a number of industrial partners including BÜFA Composite Systems, DUKSAN Chemicals, Union Chemical, Aleees Innovation & Technology Center, OET, Grace Continental, Kazan Glass Fibre Pipe Plant, Lanxess, Evermore and Trust Chem Corporation.
Target markets include anti-static and conductive composites, automotive components, conductive coatings, rubber and cathode materials for li-ion batteries. The company has future plans to invest $5 million in an R&D platform for developing industrial technologies and for engineering and prototyping of SWCNT applications – OCSiAl’s Prototyping Center. Further information on the company’s products at www.ocsial.com
Figure 3: TUBALL SWCNTs.
Image credit: OCSiAl.
Zeon Corporation
Zeon Corporation has developed the SWCNTs “Super Growth Method” discovered by Dr. Kenji Hata’s team at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), and has set up mass production technology and commercialized ZEONANO™.
The products are sold via a subsidiary, Zeon Nanotechnology. Main application markets targeted are:
- High temperature rubber compounds
- Anti-static plastics
- Supercapacitor electrodes
- Conductive paint.
In November 2016, the company developed an innovative thermal interface material (TIM) made of heat-dispersion sheets of synthetic rubber compounded with SWNTs. Featuring half the thermal resistance of grease-based products to date, the product’s sheet form also makes it very easy to work with.
Figure 4: The SGCNT synthesis method. Source: Zeon Corporation.
Figure 5: TIM sheet developed by Zeon Corporation.
Image credit: Zeon Corporation.
Further information on the company’s products at http://www.zeonnanotech.jp/en/about.html
References
1. Bethune, D. S. et al. (17 June 1993). “Cobalt-catalysed growth of carbon nanotubes with single-atomic-layer walls”. Nature 363(6430): 605–607.
2. Iijima, Sumio; Toshinari Ichihashi (17 June 1993). “Single-shell carbon nanotubes of 1-nm diameter”. Nature 363 (6430): 603–605.
3. Jorio, A., Dresselhaus, G. & Dresselhaus, M. S. Carbon Nanotubes: Advanced Topics in the Synthesis, Structure, Properties, and Applications (Springer, 2008)
4. M. Endo, Japanese Journal of Applied Physics 51 040001 (2012).
5. http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2013/CS/C2CS35325C#!divAbstract
6. http://www.technologyreview.com/news/528601/ibm-commercial-nanotube-transistors-are-coming-soon/
7. http://www.zeon.co.jp/press_e/140515.html
8. http://ocsial.com/en/product/tuball/
Further information
The Global Market for Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes 2017-2027
Published February 2017 | 240 pages
http://www.futuremarketsinc.com/the-global-market-for-single-walled-carbon-nanotubes/
