U.S. company Nanocomp Technologies, Inc. has announced that it has used long carbon nanotubes to produce a new lightweight, strong, and heat and electricity conductive textile material with potential applications in body armor, structural composites, commercial energy storage, and electronics thermal management. The new material can be used both in nonwoven and yarn forms. The article says that carbon nanotubes have superior electro-mechanical properties that could “augment or replace many current materials in end-user products.” Nanocomp’s president Peter Antoinette said, “Like our predecessors in performance products who developed Gore-Tex® and Tyvek®, we have a product platform with vast real-world functionality and, together with the system integrators that will ultimately incorporate it into end-use products, we aim to determine just how broad the benefits can extend.” Nanocomp is now developing prototype equipment for commercial scale production of the nanotube yarns and nonwoven material.
