C60 to CNT- CNF – Buckypaper: Wonder Platforms for Nanomedicine Applications

Then came the discovery of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) by Iijima [2] of NEC Laboratories, Japan, who observed these ‘needle like tubes’, which are 50,000 times thinner than human hair. He proposed a new growth model and produced these structures using an arc-discharge evaporation method. During the same year (1991), a Japanese company developed a method to grow carbon nanofibers (CNFs) [3]. Ever since, the CNTs and CNFs, like a gold rush, have drawn much attention due to their unique chemical, mechanical, electrical and structural properties on account of the stronger sp2 bonds and as a result their applications have grown manifold. On the other hand, Buckypaper (BP) is formed by filtering CNT/CNF dispersion through a fine-mesh filter using suction, as accidently found by Smalley’s group. Wang et al. [4] invented a method for making BP in large sizes while enhancing the electrical (conducting current like copper/ silicon) and thermal properties (dispersing heat like steel/brass) by magnetically aligning the CNTs in the paper, making them lighter than steel by 10 times while still keeping them lighter by 500 times. This obviously has shown immense potential in applications ranging from army vehicle armor, heat seeking missiles, next generation electronics, energy storage devices, fire protection, electromagnetic interference shielding and lighteningstrike protection on aircraft.