Investigations into carbon nanotubes within the Polymer Group first began in 1995. Since then, the programme has expanded rapidly and nanotubes now form a major component of research within the group, under the supervision of Prof. Alan Windle. A list of our nanotube publications can be obtained here.

Carbon nanotubes are an exciting allotrope of carbon that was only fully recognised ten years ago, and are generally considered to belong to the fullerene family. A wide range of applications have been suggested including nanoelectronics, ultrastrong materials ( 2 ), field emission guns ( 3 ) and catalyst supports. Within the nanotube team, we are currently investigating the use of nanotubes in electrochemical supercapacitor electrodes *, nanotube arrays for gas filration * and storage *, and nanotube-modified polymer composites *. One of the current limiting factors on the development of such applications is the limited quantity of high quality nanotubes that are available from current production routes , and hence we have a major program developing large-scale synthesis * techniques. Many applications will also require surface modification * of nanotubes in order to control their interactions with each other and with other functional materials.
Due to their molecular dimensions and (admitedly modest) flexibility we belive that nanotubes, especially the single-walled variety can be regarded as conjugated polymer molecules. In our previous work we have found evidence that nanotubes can behave in a similar fashion to polymers under certain circumstances and we expect further examples of polymeric phenomena to emerge. We are very interested in exploring the interactions within mixtures of nanotubes and conventional polymers which can be thought of as polymer blends. ( More on nanotubes as polymers )