We report the use of transition metal nanoparticles (Ni or Co) to longitudinally cut open multiwalled carbon nanotubes in order to create graphitic nanoribbons. The process consists of catalytic hydrogenation of carbon, in which the metal particles cut sp(2) hybridized carbon atoms along nanotubes that results in the liberation of hydrocarbon species. Observations reveal the presence of unzippe...

Carbon nanotubes have distinctive characteristics, but their needle-like fibre shape has been compared to asbestos, raising concerns that widespread use of carbon nanotubes may lead to mesothelioma, cancer of the lining of the lungs caused by exposure to asbestos. Here we show that exposing the mesothelial lining of the body cavity of mice, as a surrogate for the mesothelial lining of the chest...

A recent paper published in Nature Nanotechnology (Poland et al 2008) has been receiving a lot of attention. The paper details a study in which carbon nanotubes were injected into the mesothelial lining of the chest cavity of mice and concludes that multiwalled carbon nanotubes longer than 15 microns cause asbestos-like, length-dependent, pathogenic behavior (including infl ammation and the for...

Carbon nanotubes display either metallic or semiconducting properties. Both large, multiwalled nanotubes (MWNTs), with many concentric carbon shells, and bundles or "ropes" of aligned single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs), are complex composite conductors that incorporate many weakly coupled nanotubes that each have a different electronic structure. Here we demonstrate a simple and reliable method fo...

An elastic model is presented for column buckling of a multiwalled carbon nanotube embedded within an elastic medium. The emphasis is placed on the role of interlayer radial displacements between adjacent nanotubes. In contrast to an existing model which treats the entire multiwalled nanotube as a single column, the present model treats each of the nested tubes as an individual column interacti...

Heterogeneous ice nucleation is an important process in many fields, particularly atmospheric science, but is still poorly understood. All known inorganic ice nucleating particles are relatively large in size and tend to be hydrophilic. Hence it is not obvious that carbon nanomaterials should nucleate ice. However, in this paper we show that four different readily water-dispersible carbon nanom...

Boron nitride ~BN! nanotubes have the same nanostructure as carbon nanotubes but are found to exhibit significant resistance to oxidation at high temperatures. Our systematic study has revealed that BN nanotubes are stable at 700 °C in air and that some thin nanotubes ~diameter less than 20 nm! with perfect multiwalled cylindrical structure can survive up to 900 °C. Thermogravimetric analysis r...