April 7, 2006 – Researchers from the U. of Hawaii at Manoa and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have created the world’s smallest nanotube brushes , for use as electronic micro-switches or sweeping up pollutants in water.

The flexible 30nm-wide bristles, grown from hot carbon-laden gas onto threads of silicon carbide, also can be used to paint microstructures — dipped into a solution of iron oxide (rust), picking up red oxide particles to wipe onto a bare surface. Coated in absorbent materials, the nanobristles also can soak up silver ions from contaminated water.

The work originally was reported in Nature Materials in July 2005