Formation of carbon nanotube yarn by gas discharge breakdown

Abstract

Gas discharge breakdown generated between electrodes, the cathode side of which was coated with carbon nanotube (CNT) film, forms filament-like CNTs that bridges between the electrodes. This method may be used as a simple method for CNT spinning. However, the CNT filament formation efficiency was low, and therefore improvement of the filament formation efficiency has been required. We previously reported that gas discharges by multi-electrode configuration (cathode, anode, collection, and auxiliary electrodes) promotes formation of many long CNT filaments, which have lengths longer than 10 mm. By collecting these filaments, spinning of CNT can be efficiently carried out, and it enables formation of longer CNT yarns. In this study, we attempted to form a twisted CNT yarn using a wire-shaped and rotatable collection electrode, which can efficiently collect the CNT filaments formed by the gas discharge breakdown and can twist the filaments by rotating it.