The Role of Chemistry in History

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Discovery

April 24th, 2008 · 2 Comments ·

 

|| INTRODUCTION || DISCOVERY || STRUCTURE || “SMART” CLOTHES ||

|| ELECTRICITY & POWER || CANCER & DISEASE TREATMENT || REFERENCES ||

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  • Carbon nanotubes were thought to have been discovered in 1991 by an NEC employee, Sumio Iijima. New findings reveal, however, that two Soviet scientists were the first to observe a hollow nanometer carbon tube in 1952. Radushkevich and Lukyanovich’s discovery was largely unknown to American scientists because of little communication out of the USSR.

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  • Before they came to be known as carbon nanotubes, American scientists observed hollow tubes of rolled up graphite sheets in 1976. The first specimens observed would later come to be known as single walled nanotubes (SWNTs) because they are simply one layer of graphite.
  • After Iijima formally introduced the scientific community to carbon nanotubes in 1991, the discovery of multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs) followed. MWNTs are simply several layers of graphite which are then rolled into a cylinder. The layers of graphite form concentric circles if the tube were to be viewed from either end.

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  • SWNTs have proved to be the focus of scientists’ research and thus the following topics all refer to SWNTs except where noted.

Tags: Carbon Nanotubes