Furthermore, the employment of nanomaterials such as CNTs or
buckytubes in launch and spacecraft materials have the potential to dramatically reduce the total weight and cost by factors of up to 100,000.
This advance follows in rapid succession Iijima's discovery of
buckytubes in 1991 (SN: 11/16/91, p.
As produced,
Buckytubes are very light and self-adhering, which can make the material difficult to process in certain applications.
Colbert of Rice University in Houston and his coworkers have now found, amid the tangled mass of
buckytubes and ropes typically produced from carbon vapor, doughnut-shaped rings of carbon atoms.
The ability to make this most basic of
buckytubes will help chemists better understand the material's mechanical and electronic properties.
These two world-class organizations have agreed to combine their efforts (1) by completing an exclusive marketing and distribution arrangement for CNI's
buckytubes in Japan and S.
