Transmission & distribution |
surface-area materials, which is conducive to electricity transmission, as mentioned previously. And because they are six times less dense than metals, one can imagine six times more wire on an existing pylon structure; just by virtue of their mass alone, their use could increase transmission throughput without a full retrofit of assets being required.
Established applications Carbon nanotubes have been used since antiquity; they have been found to have been employed in pottery5
, with the nanotube’s high
those created in a research laboratory, and present suppliers produce on a tonne scale, so they have a one-size-fits-all agenda. But to be employed in paradigm-shifting applications, attention will need to be paid to the scale and prices needed to meet industrial requirements; we call this the “price and precision challenge.” Enter TrimTabs.
from the 6th Century, for
example, possibly due to their blackness. Also, they are a critical ingredient of 17th Century Damascus steel6
tensile strength and lightweight nature resulting in swords that were stronger as well as lighter. More recently, they can be found in a wide range of proven applications and deployed in a variety of industries.7
, achieving weight reductions of around 17% and leading to fuel savings and emissions reduction.
They are, for example, incorporated as composite materials for use in commercial aircraft8
Carbon nanotubes are highly efficient electron emitters and, having small dimensions, have been employed to create miniature X-ray devices that fit within a matchbox but are capable of imaging hominid body parts9
used in biological applications to treat cancer.10 They are employed routinely in a number of car models; their conductivity helps prevent static shock in places such as door handles and within safety-critical components such as fuel tanks.
Price and precision challenge The carbon nanotube materials currently on the market are nowhere near as pristine as
TrimTabs is a deep-tech engineering company founded by the desire to solve the two key issues with this new material: price and precision. Carbon nano tubes are presently too costly and not made fit for purpose; they are often made at an industrial scale with a one-size-fits-all approach, as already noted. At TrimTabs, we developed a modular approach to manufacturing that can have multiple single trains of production, each making bespoke products for unique customer requirements. The company was founded in 2019 and has grown the technology out of the lab space to proven TRL 6 with 50 g/h production. Over the next two years, we will focus on process refinement to scale the production of market- ready materials, with constant customer interaction.
and they have been
Engineering company Engsolve has recently been appointed to build and install a first production train – described as a Minimum Viable Product (“MVP”) system – in TrimTabs’ facility in Bridgend, Wales, UK, for the production of carbon nanotubes from hydrocarbons such as waste plastic. The process is designed to operate on a fully circular economy basis.
The new state of the art production train, expected to be fully commissioned during Q2 this year, is the first step in commercialising TrimTabs’ patented production system and will allow continuous manufacture of low-cost, highly differentiated carbon nanotubes at close
to commercial scale. It is expected to move the technology from TRL 6 to TRL 9.
Operation of the MVP unit will lead towards the construction and implementation of what we call the First Commercial Model (FCM), a modular micro-factory unit placed within two shipping containers, deployable around the world.
Transmission material of the future
In the long run, we see carbon as the transmission material of the future, and to accomplish this we must bring the price down and drive the precision up. In a nutshell, to make the best long range quantum transmission conductor, you have to start with the best nanotube material. As we sharpen our skills towards this end we are constantly working with commercial partners to make bespoke materials to improve their offering to their customers, and all the while we are constantly improving our skillset and capability. Our focus is on making ultralong carbon nanotubes so that future transmission cables do not suffer the same losses as they do today. We are also focused on a green production process to carbonise the grid.
N Behabtu, C C Young, D E Tsentalovich, O Kleinerman, X Wang, A W K Ma, E A Bengio, R F ter Waarbeek, J J de Jong, R E Hoogerwerf, et al nanotubes with ultrahigh conductivity, Science 2013, 339 (6116), 182–186. 2
References 1
R E Smalley, Future global energy prosperity: the Terawatt Challenge, MRS Bull 2005, vol 30 (6), 412-417. 3
X Wang, N Behabtu, C C Young, D E Tsentalovich, M Pasquali, J Kono, High-ampacity power cables of tightly-packed and aligned carbon nanotubes, Adv. Funct. Mater. 2014, 24 (21), 3241–3249. 5
I Szleifer, R Yerushalmi-Rozen, Polymers and carbon nanotubes - dimensionality, interactions and nanotechnology, Polymer 2005, 46 (19), 7803–7818. 4
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020- 76720-z 6
https://www.nature.com/articles/444286a 7
A J Hart, Carbon nanotubes: present and future commercial applications, Science 2013, 339 (6119), 535–539. 8
S O’Donnell, K R Spring, B M Haltli, Potential impact of carbon nanotube reinforced polymer composite on commercial aircraft performance and economics, AIAA 4th Aviation Technology, Integration and Operations (AITO) Forum, 2004, 1–10. 9
Y Cheng, O Zhou carbon nanotubes, Comptes Rendus Physique 2003, 4 (9), 1021–1033. 10
Figure 2. At a magnification of 630 000x, using a transmission electron microscope, the concentric walls can be seen that make up the multi-walled tube
24 | March 2024|
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E Andreoli, R Suzuki, A W Orbaek, Preparation and evaluation of polyethyleneimine single walled carbon nanotube conjugates as vectors for pancreatic cancer treatment, Journal of Materials B 2014, 2, 4740-4747.
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