Tiny Generators Using Carbon Nano Tubes

The discovery of carbon nano tubes is dated way back in the 1990s. Hence, they have turned out to be very versatile for the research applications. The carbon nano tubes are essentially cylindrical, thin carbon molecules which have a diameter of the order of nanometers. These have a large number of electrical and structural properties. Their application ranges from reinforcing the high end tennis rackets or handles of the bicycle to modulating the electronic signals. They are also used in transistors for computer circuits, computer memories and solar cells.

You all be astonished to know the working  principle of these nano tubes as electricity generators. The researchers coated the multiwalled carbon nanotube with a chemical fuel named as cyclotrimethylene trinitramine. (CNT). Then they produced a high voltage spark at one end of the CNT coated nanotube bundle. As a result, the CNT ignited and sent the thermal waves created due to ignition through the nano tubes. This wave caused a burst of electrons and as a consequence all the electrons were pushed in the forward direction through the tube. This essentially is called as an electric current (flow of electrons). As this phenomenon was never observed earlier, it is creating interest among the researchers.

”Nanotubes are usually regarded as uninteresting for thermoelectric energy conversion because of their very large thermal conductivity. Paradoxically, it is precisely this good thermal conductivity that appears to enable the effect,” says Natalio Mingo, a senior scientist at the French Atomic Energy Commission’s Laboratory for Innovation in New Energy Technologies and Nanomaterials, in Grenoble, France. (Quoted: IEEE spectrum).

There is a wicking effect i.e. this effect causes the thermal energy to travel 10,000 times as fast in nanotubes as it would have traveled in the fuel. Moreover these tubes can conduct heat 100 times faster along their length as compared to the metals. Hence the electrical energy produced is 100 times what have been produced in a lithium battery of an equivalent weight.

These can be used as transponders or actuators where a burst of energy is needed. The wide spread commercial applications are yet to be worked upon as scaling these would reduce the merits. But if, done we would get electricity at less cost and of higher quality for sure.