Fabrication and application of nanofiber ribbons and sheets and twisted and non-twisted nanofiber yarns

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9845554-B2
Application number	US-201615055395-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 26, 2016
Priority date	Nov 9, 2004
Publication date	Dec 19, 2017
Grant date	Dec 19, 2017

Abstract

The present invention is directed to nanofiber yarns, ribbons, and sheets; to methods of making said yarns, ribbons, and sheets; and to applications of said yarns, ribbons, and sheets. In some embodiments, the nanotube yarns, ribbons, and sheets comprise carbon nanotubes. Particularly, such carbon nanotube yarns of the present invention provide unique properties and property combinations such as extreme toughness, resistance to failure at knots, high electrical and thermal conductivities, high absorption of energy that occurs reversibly, up to 13% strain-to-failure compared with the few percent strain-to-failure of other fibers with similar toughness, very high resistance to creep, retention of strength even when heated in air at 450° C. for one hour, and very high radiation and UV resistance, even when irradiated in air. Furthermore these nanotube yarns can be spun as one micron diameter yarns and plied at will to make two-fold, four-fold, and higher fold yarns. Additional embodiments provide for the spinning of nanofiber sheets having arbitrarily large widths. In still additional embodiments, the present invention is directed to applications and devices that utilize and/or comprise the nanofiber yarns, ribbons, and sheets of the present invention.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A process for making a deformable nanofiber sheet or ribbon, the process comprising:
(a) elongating a substrate to form a deformed substrate;
(b) adhering a nanofiber sheet or ribbon to the deformed substrate; and
(c) allowing the deformed substrate to at least partially return from elongation.

2. The process of claim 1 , wherein elongating the substrate is accomplished by at least one of elastically elongating the substrate, elect…

Assignees

• Univ Texas

Inventors

• Zhang Mei
• Fang Shaoli
• Baughman Ray H
• Zakhidov Anvar A
• Aliev Ali E
• Li Sergey
• Williams Chris

Classifications

• C01B32/164

  Chemistry & Metallurgy · mapped topic

• H01B1/24

  Electricity · mapped topic

• C04B35/62855

  Chemistry & Metallurgy · mapped topic

• C04B2235/616

  Chemistry & Metallurgy · mapped topic

• C01B32/17

  Chemistry & Metallurgy · mapped topic