Thermal Conductivity of Carbon Nanotubes Life Sciences Essay (Essay Sample)

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Thermal Conductivity of Carbon Nanotubes
Background Information
The carbon nanotubes have attracted many material scientists' attention after their discovery in 1991 by Sumio Iijima. The Carbon Nanotubes (CNs) possess an impressive mechanical tensile strength, light-weight, and good thermal conductivity properties. Such properties make them intriguing for the development of new materials. Also, the synthesis of molecular carbon structures in the form of and other fullerenes has caused a lot of interest in the structures accessible to graphitic carbon.
Introduction
The Carbon Nanotubules have an excellent thermal conductivity property. In addition, they also have outstanding mechanical and electronic properties making them be grouped as excellent thermal conductors. Because of their excellent thermal management characteristic, a range of thermal CNs has been developed, which include Suspended single-layer graphene around (5000w/K m) and Single-walled carbon nanotubes (6000 W/K m). There are usually two main types of nanotubes: single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), individual cylinders, and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). Measurements from experiments have proved that ultrahigh thermal conductivities for single-walled carbon nanotubes is (6000 W K1 M1) 8, and monolayer graphene is (5300 W K1 M1). Also, thermal conductivity can be found using Fourier's formula (q= -k▽T).
Thermal Conductivity Factors
There are several factors affecting thermal conductivity; however, the most ones include CNT density, number of defects in their structure, CNT ordering within arrays, Direction of measurement in reference to their length and Temperature of measurement, and type of CNTs.
(i) Effect of thickness and length of CNT on thermal conductivity: