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| Carbon Nanofibers (source:10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b02427) |
Carbon Nanofibers (CNFs) are cylindric nanostructures - they are gaining increasing interest from the research community due to their interesting thermal, electrical and mechanical property. They have numerous potential applications including development of novel materials with enhanced strength however their applications to date have been limited by the difficulty in manufacturing.
'Diamonds in the sky'- A much publicised paper out this week reports the conversion of atmospheric carbon dioxide into Carbon NanoFibers or as they put it in the paper published in NanoLetters 'high yield process for the electrolytic
conversion of CO2, dissolved in molten carbonates, directly to CNFs at high
rates using scalable, inexpensive nickel and steel electrodes' The paper is free access and can be viewed here. Although this is not a new concept and other publications have reported the ability to synthesise CNF in a similar manner the authors report that their method is more energy (time and cost) efficient thus if scalable holds a promise for an interesting carbon capture technique as well as offering a valuable source of CNF for industry.
