Scalable continuous growth of carbon nanotubes on moving fiber substrates

A process is developed to demonstrate the large scale production capability for creating carbon nanotube-based hybrid composite materials. A novel open-ended growth chamber and reel-to-reel scalable processing system is presented for the growth of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) directly on fiber substrates. This work focuses on the growth of the carbon nanotubes, characterization of the achievable CNT morphologies and measurements of the growth dynamics. This work demonstrates a continuous growth process capable of controlled CNT production on moving glass fiber substrates at throughput rates up to 40.7 mm s−1 via maximum CNT growth rates of over 1.0 μm s−1.