CFD Research Corporation (CFDRC) has filed a patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office entitled “Carbon Nanotube Growth at Reduced Temperature via Catalytic Oxidation.” The present invention relates to methods and systems for reducing the temperature for CNT growth by simultaneously supplying hydrocarbon-containing gas and oxygen-containing gas to the surface of catalyst during CNT formation.
One important application of the developed technology is a direct growth of CNTs at a temperature below the melting temperature of aluminum current collector of supercapacitor electrode. The absence of such a process makes the fabrication of CNT-based supercapacitors difficult and expensive because of technically challenging post-growth transfer of CNTs. Dr. Alex Vasenkov made the invention while conducting research funded by an SBIR grant from NSF.
