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News & Events

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MAY 2004
WESTWOOD, MASSACHUSETTS

Scaling Up Carbon Nanotubes Production
By Andrew Wood

Several companies say they are ready to begin producing single-wall carbon nanotubes in commercial quantities. Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc. (CNI; Houston), which operates a 300 gram/day gas-phase pilot unit at Houston, says it is in the process of completing a demonstration-scale plant that can produce 20 lbs/day of the nanotubes. A 100 lbs/day unit will be ready by mid-year, and the company can further scale up capacity to 1,000 lbs/day, says Ray McLaughlin, executive v.p. and CFO.

CNI is "far ahead" of other companies in the U.S. that produce mainly research quantities of the single-walled nanotubes, as it is the only firm that has a proven, scalable process that can supply enough product for commercial applications, McLaughlin says. The company is working with undisclosed customers to use the nanotubes in conductive plastics that have antistatic properties, and in performance fibers and composites, he says. It is also targeting potential applications in fuel cell electrodes, he adds.

Meanwhile, Thomas Swan & Co. (Consett, U.K.) has started up what it says is the first commercial manufacturing process in the U.K. for high-purity single-wall carbon nanotubes at its Consett site. The plant uses a chemical vapor deposition process developed via a collaboration with Cambridge University (Cambridge, U.K.). The plant is able to produce the nanotubes in kilogram amounts, a spokesperson says. Having product available at an "accessible" price should spur a wide range of industrial applications, Swan says.

Carbon nanotube composites are being developed for use in aerospace and other high-performance applications such as body armor, sports equipment, and in the auto industry, where the use of conductive plastics can allow the use of electrostatic spray painting. Nanotube sales are currently in the tens of millions of dollars, but poised for rapid growth as applications become commercial. A Business Communications Co. report projects demand growth of 173%/year through 2006.

Several other companies say they are developing commercial production technologies for nanotubes. Nano-C (Boston) has licensed patents from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT; Cambridge) that will allow the company's combustion synthesis process to make nanostructured carbon materials including single- and multiwall nanotubes "at a fraction of current costs." The original Nano-C process is used by the Mitsubishi Chemical affiliate Frontier Carbon to make fullerenes, the spherical cousins of nanotubes, at Kurosaki, Japan.