At a very basic level, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon in the shape of a cylinder. Their unique properties like strength, hardness, and advanced electrical conductivity have gotten experts from a range of fields—from the scientific community right through to the manufacturing industry—talking about the possibilities of CNTs.
All this excitement, coupled with a huge array of current and potential applications for these tiny structures is generating a CAGR of 14.84 percent from 2014-2019 in the Global Carbon Nanotubes Market.
Who’s Using Carbon Nanotubes?
Chemicals, Plastics, and Composites Industries
In 2014, the Global Carbon Nanotubes market was dominated by the chemicals, plastics, and composites segment, which accounted for a whopping 61 percent market share. Since carbon nanotubes are an incredibly strong material, they are being used more and more in these industries to reinforce materials, including:
- Bicycle components
- Wind turbines
- Flat panel displays
- Scanning probe microscopes
- Sensing devices
- Solar panels
- Conductive plastics
- Marine paints
- Sports equipment such as skis, baseball bats, hockey sticks, archery arrows, and surfboards
Electronics and Semiconductors
This application segment is the fastest-growing segment in the Global Carbon Nanotubes Market. The unique electrical and mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes make them suitable for applications in the development of transistors, small semiconductor components, electrostatic packaging, hard disk drive components, integrated chips, and burn sockets.
Energy, Batteries, and Capacitors
The development of high-energy storage devices has been an area of research attracting a lot of attention recently, and all eyes are turning to carbon nanotubes as a potential solution to energy storage needs. CNTs are being used to manufacture lithium-ion batteries and super capacitors because of their electrochemical performance, high thermal and electrical conductivity, high tensile strength and flexibility, and high surface area.
Potential to Replace Other Materials
It’s all this potential for carbon nanotubes to actually replace other materials that has people buzzing.
Some research centers have developed CNTs that can be used in solar cells as an alternative to silicon, which is the elementary material used to convert of solar energy into electricity. Incorporating carbon nanotubes in solar cells instead of silicon significantly increases conversion efficiency by multiplying the flow of the electric current. In fact, it’s been shown that CNTs have 70 times the mobility of silicon, which allows them to carry currents at higher speeds in solar cells.
Because of the increased awareness of solar energy and the ability of carbon nanotube-based solar cells to remove the current barriers that are restricting the widespread adoption of this technology, the commercial use of carbon nanotubes in solar cells is expected to drive growth in the Global Carbon Nanotubes Market during the forecast period.
On top of these exciting applications in solar power, CNTs also have the potential to replace fragile and expensive indium tin-coated films that are used in applications such as liquid crystal displays, touch screens, and organic LEDs.
