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September 28, 2011 — The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) developed a method to etch diamond crystals, engineering precise microscopic cuts in a diamond surface. These diamond-etched features could lead to better micro electro mechanical system (MEMS) devices.

Diamond withstands extreme conditions, and can vibrate at the highest frequencies required by consumer electronics devices, making it an "ideal substance" for MEMS devices, said Craig McGray, NIST. The harder material could make diamond-based MEMS substantially longer lasting than those fabricated on silicon.

Also read: MEMS applications using diamond thin films

The hard crystal (diamond is a 10 on the Mohs scale of hardness) is difficult to precisely cut. The NIST method creates cavities in the diamon via chemical etch. Diamond crystals are cubic, so slices can be oriented in different ways. Etching speed is dependent on slice orientation: going with cube faces etching is slower, and face planes can create boundaries to etch patterns. The NIST team created diamond cavities 1 to 72µm wide, with vertical, smooth sidewalls and flat bottoms.

Process control still needs to be optimized, noted McGray. The diamond also behaved unexpectedly at some points in the experimental processing. Both of these challenges will be addressed in the team’s next project: creating a prototype diamond MEMS device.

Results are published at: C.D. McGray, R.A. Allen, M. Cangemi and J. Geist. Rectangular scale-similar etch pits in monocrystalline diamond. Diamond and Related Materials. Available online 22 August 2011, ISSN 0925-9635, 10.1016/j.diamond.2011.08.007.

Learn more about NIST at www.nist.gov.

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September 28, 2011 — Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have failed to meet commercial expectations set a decade ago, and another carbon nano material, graphene, is being considered a viable candidate in the same applications: computers, displays, photovoltaics (PV), and flexible electronics. CNT and graphene transistors may be available commercially starting in 2015, according IDTechEx’s report, "Carbon Nanotubes and Graphene for Electronics Applications 2011-2021".

Printed and potentially printed electronics represent the biggest available market for these transistors: the value of devices incorporating CNT and/or graphene will top $44 billion in 2021.

Graphene materials have become commercially available in a short time, prompting application development and processing advances, notes Cathleen Thiele, technology analyst, IDTechEx. Graphene is a fraction of the weight and cost of CNTs, and could supplant it, as well as indium tin oxide (ITO) in some applications. Graphene has no band gap, and therefore must be modified (stacking layers of graphene in certain patterns, for example) to act as an electronic switch.

OLED and flexible PV cells will make up a $25 billion market in 2021, says Thiele, and some of these products will use graphene combined with other flexible, transparent electronic components

Graphene-based transistors are demonstrating high performance and lower cost, thanks to new graphene production methods. Graphene transistors are a potential successor to certain silicon components; an electron can move faster through graphene than through silicon. Tetrahertz computing is a possible application.

CNTs are still a strong research area, Thiele notes. They can be used in transistors and conductive layers in touch screens, and as a replacement for iTO. The cost of CNTs is dropping from prohibitively high levels seen a few years ago. Chemical companies are ramping manufacturing capacity. Carbon nanotubes face challenges related to separation and consistent growth. Electronics applications require CNTs of the same size, as size affects CNT properties.

For more information on “Carbon Nanotubes and Graphene for Electronics Applications 2011-2021,” contact: Raoul Escobar-Franco at [email protected], +1 617 577 7890 (USA), or visit www.IDTechEx.com/nano.

Printable CNT inks and graphene-based inks are beginning to hit the printed electronics market. IDTechEx will host the Printed Electronics & Photovoltaics USA conference & exhibition in Santa Clara, CA, November 30-December 1, www.IDTechEx.com/peUSA, with talks on both nanomaterials.

Graphene:
Dr Narayan Hosmane from Northern Illinois University will share how he almost by accident produced high-yields of graphene instead of the expected single-wall carbon nanotubes using the Dry-Ice Method. He will discuss synthetic methodologies for producing large volumes of graphene.

Kate Duncan from CERDEC, the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center, will present on direct write approaches to nanoscale electronics.

Prof Yang Yang, head of the Yang Group at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), will give a brief summary on olymer solar cells and UCLA developments with G-CNTs, a hybrid graphene-carbon nanotube material.

Dr Sanjay Monie, Vorbeck Materials, will give the latest R&D news on the Vor-ink line of conductive graphene inks and coatings for the printed electronics industry.

Carbon nanotubes:
Stephen Turner, Brewer Science, will talk about Aromatic Hydrocarbon Functionalization of carbon nanotubes for conductive applications. Brewer Science’s CNTRENE carbon nanotube material was developed for semiconductor, advanced packaging/3-D IC, MEMS, display, LED, and printed electronics applications.

Dr Philip Wallis, SWeNT, will discuss proprietary V2V ink technology and how SWeNT fabricates and tests TFT devices.

Dr Jamie Nova, Applied Nanotech (ANI), will cover CNT field emission.

September 27, 2011 — Pixelligent LLC, nanocrystal additive maker, closed $5.1 million in funding. The round was 6 times over-subscribed, requiring the company board to significantly upsize the round.

Pixelligent will purchase production equipment, install new systems and hire employees. It will provide the resources for Pixelligent to bring NanoAdditives to a broader market, said Craig Bandies, CEO Pixelligent Technologies.

New investors included the Abell Foundation, WISE LLC, and an Angel group. The Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC) and the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED) added funds, $200,000 and $100,000 respectively. Pixelligent has raised nearly $9M in equity and has been awarded more than $9M in government grant programs during the past 30 months.

Pixelligent "demonstrated tremendous progress" over 24 months, said Robert Embry, president of the Abell Foundation. The nanotechnology products address critical challenges in electronics, industrial, and lubricants sectors, added Lisa Gordon-Hagerty of WISE LLC.

Pixelligent recently moved into a new 10,500sq.ft. pilot manufacturing facility in Baltimore, MD. The facility has room for expansion, and Pixelligent is recruiting senior manufacturing, sales, and finance staff. The facility will open in Fall 2011.

Pixelligent Technologies supplies nanocrystal additives for the electronics, industrial and military markets. Learn more at www.pixelligent.com.

September 27, 2011 – Marketwire — Thermoelectric maker Marlow Industries launched the EverGen series, thermoelectric-based energy harvesting devices offering low-cost, zero-maintenance power for wireless sensor applications. Wired systems or batteries for wireless sensors prove costly and time-consuming to maintain.

The devices convert small temperature differences (degrees) into milliwatts of power. This electricity is enough to power wireless sensors for the application’s lifetime. The solid-state energy source can be used with sensors, valve solenoids, actuators, and other small devices. The current line includes three designs, with additional products in the works.

EverGen thermoelectric devices:
EverGen Liquid-to-Air: Higher temperature fluid stream and ambient air. Energy harvested via natural convection.
EverGen Liquid-to-Liquid: Higher temperature fluid stream and lower temperature fluid stream.
EverGen Solid-to-Air: Higher temperature solid surface and ambient air. Energy harvested via natural convection.

Marlow will work with customers in multiple industries to integrate energy harvesting devices into existing wireless sensor applications and currently wired installations. Customers need wireless energy harvesters for existing and new builds, the company notes.

New building codes require lighting and heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) "smart" designs that moderate usage. Recycling waste heat into electrical power is one way to achieve this, according to Marlow Industries. The company’s aim is to turn the "emerging alternative energy market" into the "mainstream," said Barry Nickerson, general manager, Marlow Industries.

Marlow Industries, a subsidiary of II-VI incorporated, develops and makes thermoelectric technology including thermoelectric modules (TEMs) and subsystems for the aerospace, defense, medical, commercial, industrial, automotive, consumer gaming, telecommunications and power generation markets. For more information visit the company’s website: http://www.marlow.com.

II-VI Incorporated (NASDAQ:IIVI) is a vertically integrated manufacturing company that creates and markets products for industrial manufacturing, military and aerospace, high-power electronics and telecommunications, and thermoelectronics applications.

Also read: MIT redesigns MEMS for better energy harvester

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September 26, 2011 — Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientists designed a tailored polymer that enables increased energy storage in lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries with silicon anodes, maintaining the increased energy capacity in tests over a year later with many hundreds of charge-discharge cycles.

The tailored polymer conducts electricity and binds closely to lithium-storing silicon particles, which expand to more than 3x their volume during charging and shrink during discharge. The anodes are made from low-cost materials, compatible with standard lithium-battery manufacturing technologies.

Figure 1. At left, the traditional approach to composite anodes using silicon (blue spheres) for higher energy capacity has a polymer binder such as PVDF (light brown) plus added particles of carbon to conduct electricity (dark brown spheres). Silicon swells and shrinks while acquiring and releasing lithium ions, and repeated swelling and shrinking eventually break contacts among the conducting carbon particles. At right, the new Berkeley Lab polymer (purple) is itself conductive and continues to bind tightly to the silicon particles despite repeated swelling and shrinking.

Lithium-ion batteries typically have graphite anodes, expanding modestly when housing the ions between its graphene layers. Silicon can store 10X more, but it swells to more than three times its volume when fully charged, said Gao Liu of Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD), a member of the BATT program (Batteries for Advanced Transportation Technologies) managed by the Lab and supported by DOE’s Office of Vehicle Technologies. This swelling breaks the anode’s electrical contacts. Some companies mix silicon particles into a flexible polymer binder with carbon black for conductivity. The Berkeley Lab researchers decided to use this concept without the carbon materials, which suffer from pump out after repeated charges. 

Figure 2. At top, spectra of a series of polymers obtained with soft x-ray absorption spectroscopy at ALS beamline 8.0.1 show a lower “lowest unoccupied molecular orbital” for the new Berkeley Lab polymer, PFFOMB (red), than other polymers (purple), indicating better potential conductivity. Here the peak on the absorption curve reveals the lower key electronic state. At bottom, simulations disclose the virtually complete, two-stage electron charge transfer when lithium ions bind to the new polymer.

PAN (polyaniline) polymer has positive charges; it starts out as a conductor but quickly loses conductivity. An ideal conducting polymer should readily acquire electrons, rendering it conducting in the anode’s reducing environment.

A polymer with a low value of the “lowest unoccupied molecular orbital,” where electrons can easily reside and move freely best suits the Li-ion battery. Ideally, electrons would be acquired from the lithium atoms during the initial charging process. Liu and his postdoctoral fellow Shidi Xun in EETD designed a series of such polyfluorene-based conducting polymers (PFs).

Wanli Yang of Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source (ALS) used conducting soft x-ray absorption spectroscopy on Liu and Xun’s candidate polymers using ALS beamline 8.0.1 to determine their key electronic properties. Soft x-ray spectroscopy has the power to track where the ions and electrons are and where they move, Yang said.

Compared with the electronic structure of PAN, the absorption spectra Yang obtained for the PFs differed, most notably in PFs incorporating a carbon-oxygen functional group (carbonyl).

Lin-Wang Wang of Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division (MSD) joined the research collaboration with his postdoctoral fellow, Nenad Vukmirovic, to conduct ab initio calculations of the polymers at the Lab’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC). They determined precisely how the lithium ions attach to the polymer, and why the added carbonyl functional group improves the process.

The lithium ions interact with the polymer first, and afterward bind to the silicon particles. When a lithium atom binds to the polymer through the carbonyl group, it gives its electron to the polymer — a doping process that significantly improves the polymer’s electrical conductivity, facilitating electron and ion transport to the silicon particles.

Figure 3. Transmission electron microscopy reveals the new conducting polymer’s improved binding properties. At left, silicon particles embedded in the binder are shown before cycling through charges and discharges (closer view at bottom). At right, after 32 charge-discharge cycles, the polymer is still tightly bound to the silicon particles, showing why the energy capacity of the new anodes remains much higher than graphite anodes after more than 650 charge-discharge cycles during testing.

To tune the polymer’s physical properties, Liu added another functional group, producing a polymer that can adhere tightly to the silicon particles as they acquire or lose lithium ions and undergo repeated changes in volume.

Scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy at the National Center for Electron Microscopy (NCEM), showing the anodes after 32 charge-discharge cycles, confirmed that the modified polymer adhered strongly throughout the battery operation even as the silicon particles repeatedly expanded and contracted. Tests at the ALS and simulations confirmed that the added mechanical properties did not affect the polymer’s superior electrical properties.

"Using commercial silicon particles and without any conductive additive, our composite anode exhibits the best performance so far," says Liu. "The whole manufacturing process is low cost and compatible with established manufacturing technologies. The commercial value of the polymer has already been recognized by major companies, and its possible applications extend beyond silicon anodes."

The research collaboration is now studying other battery components, including cathodes.

The research team reports its findings in Advanced Materials: "Polymers with Tailored Electronic Structure for High Capacity Lithium Battery Electrodes," by Gao Liu, Shidi Xun, Nenad Vukmirovic, Xiangyun Song, Paul Olalde-Velasco, Honghe Zheng, Vince S. Battaglia, Lin-Wang Wang, and Wanli Yang. Access it at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201102421/abstract.

Materials research for this work in the BATT program was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The ALS, NCEM, and NERSC are national scientific user facilities supported by DOE’s Office of Science. Visit http://batt.lbl.gov/, http://www-als.lbl.gov/, http://ncem.lbl.gov/, or http://www.nersc.gov/.www.lbl.gov.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world’s most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit http://science.energy.gov.

September 26, 2011 — Scientists at the US Brookhaven National Laboratory discovered a new kind of quasiparticles (excitations of electric charge that resemble particles) in three-layer graphene sheets. These quasiparticles have mass dependent on their velocity, unlike mass-less quasiparticles known to exist in single-layer graphene. If the quasiparticles were at rest, they would become "infinitely massive."

Combine the tri-layer graphene quasiparticles with a heterostructure with magnetic material, and a much larger density of spin-polarized charge carriers than single-layer graphene could be generated. Spintronics devices could be designed to control both electric charge and spin, aligning the charge-carrier quasiparticle spins. The "very unusual quasiparticles" govern how tri-layer graphene behaves in a magnetic field, and other behaviors, said Igor Zaliznyak, a Brookhaven physicist who led the research team.

Figure. Tri-layer graphene stacked in an ABC pattern creates three offset layers like stair steps. SOURCE: Brookhaven Lab.

Graphene’s electrons flow freely across honeycomb-lattice-like flat, single-layer sheets. When layers are stacked, graphene electrons can be tuned, allowing current control like that in electronic devices. The stacking pattern is important. For this research, the honeycomb lattice in each stacked layer were offset, creating a "staircase" for electron flow.

The tri-layer graphene was made at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) at Brookhaven Lab by peeling layers from graphite and mapping samples with microRaman microscopy. The CFN’s nanolithography tools, including ion-beam milling, were used to shape the samples for electrode connections, enabling measurements.

At the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL) in Tallahassee, FL, the scientists then studied the effect of an external magnetic field on the transport of electronic charge as a function of charge carrier density, temperature, and magnetic field strength.

These measurements confirmed theoretical work on the unique quasiparticles in the tri-layer graphene system. The quasiparticles behave as if they have a range of masses, diverging as the energy level decreases with quasiparticles becoming infinitely massive. Chirality, a spin-related property, protects these quasiparticles from being destroyed by virtual particle-hole pairs.

The work was published online in Nature Physics on September 25, 2011. Access the article here: http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nphys2104.html

It was funded primarily by the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science (BES); work at the NHMFL was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the State of Florida. A great deal of research was carried out by Liyuan Zhang, research associate at Brookhaven and Yan Zhang, a graduate student from Stony Brook University.

The Center for Functional Nanomaterials at Brookhaven National Laboratory is one of the five DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers (NSRCs), premier national user facilities for interdisciplinary research at the nanoscale. For more information about the DOE NSRCs, please visit http://nano.energy.gov.

Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers.

Story courtesy of Karen McNulty Walsh, Brookhaven National Laboratory

September 23, 2011 — Implementing vehicle safety and pollution control mandates on its large driving population, China became the world’s fastest-growing country for automotive microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) sales, according to a new IHS iSuppli Automotive MEMS Market Brief.

Also read: 2012 sees automotive sensor market back to healthy growth track

China’s automotive MEMS market will expand to $387.9 million in 2015, up from $194.3 million in 2010 (see the figure), equalling a 5-year compound annual growth rate of 14.8%. The worldwide average is 9.0%.

The proliferation of auto MEMS in China comes from an increase in MEMS per vehicle, government mandates for sensors, and China’s booming car sales, said Richard Dixon, senior analyst for MEMS and sensors at IHS. Compared to the worldwide average number of sensors per car at 9.2 in 2010, vehicles in China have five. But China’s number will double to 10 by 2015, accelerated by the increased deployment of airbags and tire-pressure monitoring systems (TPMS). The use of basic engine sensors to lower carbon emissions in cars also will be a factor contributing to automotive MEMS growth in China, especially as the country adopts European-style regulations.

Other applications include airbag deployment, silicon MEMS manifold absolute pressure (MAP) sensors, adaptive front headlights, brake assist, adaptive cruise control, and the currently underdeveloped electronic stability control integration. Government mandates could spike consumption for these products.

Production of passenger cars for the Chinese market is set to increase to 22.2 million units in 2015, up from 16.3 million in 2010. Find out more in Automotive MEMS sensors recalculating for growth after 2010-2011 disruptions.

Official government recommendations have set a national standard in China for TPMS, which should have come into effect during July but will ramp up in mid-2012. China’s prominent role in implementing TPMS for its vehicles will accelerate the global TPMS market to a fitment rate of 73% by 2015.

China is not the biggest automotive MEMS sensor consumer: that title over the 5-yr period goes to North America, followed by Europe, then China, and then Japan. Global revenue for the products will rise 50% in this time to hit $2.9 billion in 2015.

The most prominent player in the Chinese automotive MEMS sector is German manufacturer Bosch GmbH, whose MAP shipments to the country soared in 2010. Bosch also has cemented a deal with Texas-based Freescale Semiconductor Inc. to offer an airbag reference platform to help newly rising markets in the Asian region.

Prior to 2010, a high-profile deal had been sealed between Analog Devices Inc. and Infineon Technologies to provide sensors and other semiconductors needed for an airbag hardware design platform, which sought to reduce the time-to-market efforts of Tier 1 companies in what was then the emerging market of China.

Learn more in 2012 sees automotive sensor market back to healthy growth track

iSuppli provides comprehensive MEMS and sensors insights. Visit http://www.isuppli.com/MEMS-and-Sensors/Pages/Products.aspx

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September 23, 2011 — On the journey to micro electro mechanical system (MEMS) commercialization over the past 20 years, the industry has seen some very successful products and companies, but the road is also littered with many failures: failed products, bankrupt companies, and disgruntled investors. According to Jean-Christophe Eloy, president and CEO of Yole Développement, MEMS start-ups need about $45 million and three to four CEOs to make it to commercialization. Not exactly the best “Welcome to MEMS” sign if you are entering this diverse industry.

Developing a new MEMS product is a difficult and risky business. What makes developing new MEMS devices so hard? This is a question that many ask — especially those who have experience in the semiconductor industry — but the comparison is not fair. The main reason it’s a false comparison is because while the IC industry has robust and efficient electronic design automation (EDA) tools, MEMS does not. Though several MEMS-specific EDA tools do exist, they do not yet offer the end-to-end simulation capability that has speeded design in the IC industry.

MEMS product development differs in other ways as well. There is a lack of standard processes, and foundries serving the MEMS industry offer varying material properties. If this weren’t challenging enough, MEMS process and layout design rules are complicated by their sensitivity to multiple variables, including pattern load factor, line-width and location on the wafer. These issues lead to a lot of process characterization work, which adds to the budget and timeline.

MEMS supplier ecosystem today — much improved. Specialization reduces resource requirements.

While all of this may sound daunting, we are making significant strides in MEMS product development. The good news is that the MEMS industry now has a more robust infrastructure: a supply chain of MEMS foundries, software designers, equipment vendors, materials suppliers, and device manufacturers (all represented in MEMS Industry Group), which can assist and support a MEMS-intelligent product development methodology. To commercialize a successful MEMS product, one must start with an experienced technical team that can close the gaps in current MEMS EDA tools, and an experienced business team, that can assemble the correct supply chain to support that specific MEMS product.

Commercializing MEMS can take years and millions of dollars. But as in life, many things that are hard are worth the effort. Just look at the wildly successful Apple iPhone and the resultant App store. Would there be the phenomenon of Angry Birds without MEMS? Nope. Thankfully, someone figured out the challenges to MEMS product development to enable the MEMS inside the machine.

This blog is provided by MEMS Industry Group (MIG).

Karen Lightman is managing director, MEMS Industry Group. Contact her at http://www.memsindustrygroup.org/.

Alissa M. Fitzgerald is founder and managing member, A.M. Fitzgerald & Associates; and a member of the MEMS Industry Group governing council board.

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September 23, 2011 — Smart grids — adaptable and better-managed electricity systems — will proliferate over the next decade. In turn, smart grids will generate nearly $6 billion demand for lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries by 2020, to fulfill energy storage needs, according to the IHS iSuppli Rechargeable Batteries Special Report.

Energy storage stabilizes the grid between peak and low energy usage times, and can back-up power sources or store energy from intermittent sources like wind and solar power. The rechargable batteries in a smart grid system optimize electric power delivery.

The Li-ion battery market for smart grids will experience rapid growth from 2012 onward (see the figure), surging from $72 million in 2012 to $5.98 billion in worldwide revenue by 2020. Demand sources include single-home systems, residential clusters or buildings, uninterruptible power power systems for corporate information technology (IT) operations, through large-scale systems used by grid operators.

Lithium-ion batteries demonstrate "inherent advantages compared to alternative technologies," said Satoru Oyama, principal analyst for Japan electronics research for IHS. Because Li-ion technology is "uniquely suited for use in smart grids," the batteries will take over as the dominant rechargable energy storage systems on smart grids, Oyama said. Li-ion batteries maintain full capacity even after a partial recharge, and are considered to be more environmentally safe than other battery technologies.

Smart grids are developing with various government initiatives globally: the US has $4.5 billion set aside for smart grid deployment, and China could be the largest smart grid market in the world with $586 billion for investment during the next 10 years.

To learn more about this topic, see Strong Growth to Drive Lithium-ion Battery Market to $54 Billion by 2020: http://www.isuppli.com/semiconductor-value-chain/pages/strong-growth-to-drive-lithium-ion-battery-market-to-61-billion-by-2020.aspx?PRX. IHS (NYSE: IHS) is the leading source of information and insight in critical areas that shape today’s business landscape, including energy and power; design and supply chain; defense, risk and security; environmental, health and safety (EHS) and sustainability; country and industry forecasting; and commodities, pricing and cost.

Also read: Energy Storage Trends from chief editor Peter Singer

September 22, 2011 — Carbon nanotubes (CNT) company SouthWest NanoTechnologies Inc. (SWeNT) received an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) consent order permitting SWeNT to manufacture and distribute multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) for commercial applications.

SWeNT’s Multi-Wall products are sold under the SWeNT SMW, Specialty Multi-Wall, trademark.

SWeNT reports that it is now the only US manufacturer permitted to commercially distribute both single and multi-wall carbon nanotubes. Commercial-scale sales allow more product developers to integrate CNTs for cost and performance improvements, from a domestic source, said SWeNT CEO Dave Arthur.

Prior to the EPA decision, SWeNT distributed its SMW products via a low release, low exposure (LOREX) PMN exemption from the EPA.

The EPA granted this consent order under the Toxic Control Substances Act (TSCA), which requires defining each company’s carbon nanotubes as a new chemical substance. The EPA requires manufacturers who intend to distribute commercial quantities to obtain a consent order prior to CNT commercial production or distribution, although small quantities are permitted for research and development from suppliers with a LOREX exemption.  

The consent order states that SWeNT’s SMW CNTs can be used as additives in resins, thermoplastics and elastomers for mechanical reinforcement and enhanced electrical properties. The SWeNT products can also be used commercially for coatings on metallic foils for batteries and for fabric composites manufacturing.

SouthWest NanoTechnologies (SWeNT) is a specialty chemical company that manufactures high-quality single-wall and specialty multi-wall carbon nanotubes, printable inks and CNT-coated fabrics. For more information, please visit www.swentnano.com.