Archaeological evidence suggests that humans discovered the art of spinning fibers into yarns as early as the New Stone Age about 10 000 years ago. The technology continues to evolve today as materials engineers develop durable, ultrafine, and exotic kinds of yarns and fabrics. Carbon nanotubes are among the most intriguing of materials that can form such textiles. Composed of graphite sheets that seamlessly wrap into long cylindrical tubes, and available in single-wall and multiwall flavors, nanotubes are stronger than steel, extremely stiff, chemically stable, and nearly perfect thermal and electrical conductors. The challenge is to transfer those microscopic properties of the individual molecules to bulk materials at macroscopic scales.
Researchers have been making nanotube fibers, ribbons, and sheets for the past five years, ever since the University of Bordeaux’s Philippe Poulin and colleagues injected surfactant-dispersed nanotubes into a polymer-containing coagulation bath. The process produced gel fibers that they then...
