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04/26/2006

Carbon Nanotubes Hit the Ice

Last week my wife and I had the good fortune to attend a concert
at Lincoln Center with Mstislav Rostropovich conducting the
New York Philharmonic. Rostropovich, who was so close with
Shostakovich in the USSR that he considered Shostakovich like a
father, appropriately conducted the composer’s Symphony No.
10 and his Violin Concerto No. 1. The latter work featured as
soloist the 31-year-old Siberian-born violinist Maxim Vengerov,
whose breathtaking performance elicited tumultuous cheers and
bravos from the audience. The program notes quoted violinist
Venyamin Basner as describing the concerto as a “relentlessly
hard, intense piece for the soloist”. It certainly is. Prior to the
concerto’s premiere in Leningrad in 1955, violinist David
Oistrakh pleaded with Shostakovich to show him mercy by
letting the orchestra take over the first bars of the finale so as to
give Oistrakh a break to “wipe the sweat off my brow”! The
composer agreed and revised the score so both Oistrakh and
Vengerov could catch their breaths before the demanding finale.

I felt that we were witnessing the passing of the torch from the
78 or 79-year-old Rostropovich to Vengerov, who is also a
conductor. Rostropovich, a renowned cellist and former music
director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington,
D.C., is probably one of the few who have won the USSR’s
Lenin Prize and the U.S.’s Presidential Medal of Freedom and he
also shared music’s prestigious Polar Prize with Sir Elton John.
He not only was a staunch defender of Solzhenitsyn during the
Soviet period but also went to Moscow in 1991 to stand with
those in the Russian “White House” fighting the unsuccessful
coup attempt.

Shostakovich was a controversial figure, alternating between
being condemned or praised during the Stalin regime. In fact,
the Symphony No. 10 that we heard was finished soon after
Stalin’s death and purportedly is a depiction of Stalin and his
times. This powerful work really brought out the amazing
musicianship of the Philharmonic. I especially never cease to
marvel about the string sections, which can sound as one even in
the most complicated passages that include rapid plucking of the
strings transitioning immediately into “normal” bowing.

One thing about a performance of Shostakovich’s major works –
you never leave humming a melody from the concert. However,
you will likely not forget the visceral experience. In the program
notes for our concert, James Keller described the controversy
among musical scholars about the messages and meanings of
Shostakovich’s works. Keller suggests they are like the Russian
matryoshka dolls. As with these dolls stacked inside each other,
Keller feels that just when you get comfortable, Shostakovich
twists the music apart to reveal another surprise inside.

Which leads me to the Shostakovich of elemental chemistry –
carbon, an element that I return to every so often as new
surprises are revealed. Our editor, Brian Trumbore, mentions
carbon in his Week in Review columns in connection with his
investment in the stock of a carbon fiber company. Carbon can
be the world’s hardest material, diamond, or one of its softer
materials, graphite – the “lead” in your pencil. We’ve talked
about fullerenes, in which carbon may be a buckyball (60 carbon
atoms arranged in a structure resembling a soccer ball) or a
nanotube. In a carbon nanotube, carbon atoms are arranged in
hexagons in a structure resembling a tube of rolled up chicken
wire.

You might not think that rolled up carbon “chicken wire” would
be exciting. Yet the amount of work on carbon nanotubes
worldwide is astounding and for good reason. A July 1, 2005
article on the Web site of the National Research Council (NRC)
of Canada describes carbon nanotubes as “ the world’s ultimate
material”! The article supports this view by noting that carbon
nanotubes are a hundred times stronger than steel and are the best
conductors of heat and electricity known to science. Carbon
nanotubes can also be superconductors as well as semiconductors
depending on how they’re tweaked mechanically or chemically.
They are indeed remarkable materials but there is a catch,

The catch lies in the “nano” in nanotube. These things are truly
tiny and to make any significant quantity of them has been a
challenge. The NRC article gives the world’s total production as
only 300 kilograms (about 660 pounds) a year and you could pay
up to $600 a gram to buy some. Nevertheless, the title of the
NRC article, “Building the Perfect Hockey Stick or Aircraft –
Carbon Nanotubes”, suggests that something is in the wings in
the way of mass production and cost reduction for the carbon
nanotube. And wouldn’t you know that, based in Canada, one
would think of an application in a hockey stick? Indeed, the
article describes an effort at NRC and the University of
Sherbrooke to mass-produce the nanotubes and then form a
composite resin containing the nanotubes. If the composite
performs well in the hockey stick, then it’s on to test the waters
in the aerospace market.

That was last year. Sure enough, I spotted a news item dated
March 6, 2006 in the Materials Research Society’s Materials
News that said a Finnish company has put multiwalled carbon
nanotubes in its ice hockey sticks. (Nanotubes come in single-
walled form or multiwalled form. In a single-walled nanotube,
the chicken wire structure is only one atom thick. In a
multiwalled nanotube, it’s like stacking chicken wire tubes inside
each other.) Well, I searched the Web for more on this
development and came up with the name of the Finnish company
- Montreal Sports! They’re serious and are marketing the new
“Nitro Lite” hockey sticks as having 60-70 percent greater
impact resistance and greater flexibility for better puck feel and
handling. And the Stanley Cup playoffs are just beginning. The
sticks reportedly have better flexibility compared to a composite
containing carbon fiber (sorry about that, Brian).

Montreal Sports uses nanotubes supplied by Bayer in Germany.
A visit to the Bayer MaterialScience Web site indicates that they
have a continuous cost-effective process for producing carbon
nanotubes, which look like black dust to the naked eye. They
don’t give a price but do say they have lowered the cost below
1,000 euros per kilogram, roughly a dollar a gram. Whatever the
figure, it’s clear that the cost trend is down and conducive to
commercial applications.

Aside from hockey sticks, research continues that may open up
new fields. One new field may have been opened up by Boston
College professors Jianyu Huang and Zhifeng Ren and their
students. They have made single-walled carbon nanotubes
“superstretchy” according to an article by Bethany Halford in the
January 23 Chemical and Engineering News. Single-walled
carbon nanotubes are very strong at room temperature and
workers haven’t been able to stretch them more than a few
percent before they break. However, the Boston researchers
found that when they put a voltage of a little over 2 volts across
one of these nanotubes they could stretch the little bugger more
than three times its length before it breaks.

They attribute this stretchiness to the fact that the current that
passes through the nanotube heats it up to about 2,000 degrees
Centigrade and the carbon atoms rearrange themselves when the
tube is pulled. This effect at high temperatures may be simply a
scientific curiosity or it might open up a new field of uses for
carbon nanotubes in high temperature composites, not just low
temperature hockey sticks.

Allen F. Bortrum



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-04/26/2006-      
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Dr. Bortrum

04/26/2006

Carbon Nanotubes Hit the Ice

Last week my wife and I had the good fortune to attend a concert
at Lincoln Center with Mstislav Rostropovich conducting the
New York Philharmonic. Rostropovich, who was so close with
Shostakovich in the USSR that he considered Shostakovich like a
father, appropriately conducted the composer’s Symphony No.
10 and his Violin Concerto No. 1. The latter work featured as
soloist the 31-year-old Siberian-born violinist Maxim Vengerov,
whose breathtaking performance elicited tumultuous cheers and
bravos from the audience. The program notes quoted violinist
Venyamin Basner as describing the concerto as a “relentlessly
hard, intense piece for the soloist”. It certainly is. Prior to the
concerto’s premiere in Leningrad in 1955, violinist David
Oistrakh pleaded with Shostakovich to show him mercy by
letting the orchestra take over the first bars of the finale so as to
give Oistrakh a break to “wipe the sweat off my brow”! The
composer agreed and revised the score so both Oistrakh and
Vengerov could catch their breaths before the demanding finale.

I felt that we were witnessing the passing of the torch from the
78 or 79-year-old Rostropovich to Vengerov, who is also a
conductor. Rostropovich, a renowned cellist and former music
director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington,
D.C., is probably one of the few who have won the USSR’s
Lenin Prize and the U.S.’s Presidential Medal of Freedom and he
also shared music’s prestigious Polar Prize with Sir Elton John.
He not only was a staunch defender of Solzhenitsyn during the
Soviet period but also went to Moscow in 1991 to stand with
those in the Russian “White House” fighting the unsuccessful
coup attempt.

Shostakovich was a controversial figure, alternating between
being condemned or praised during the Stalin regime. In fact,
the Symphony No. 10 that we heard was finished soon after
Stalin’s death and purportedly is a depiction of Stalin and his
times. This powerful work really brought out the amazing
musicianship of the Philharmonic. I especially never cease to
marvel about the string sections, which can sound as one even in
the most complicated passages that include rapid plucking of the
strings transitioning immediately into “normal” bowing.

One thing about a performance of Shostakovich’s major works –
you never leave humming a melody from the concert. However,
you will likely not forget the visceral experience. In the program
notes for our concert, James Keller described the controversy
among musical scholars about the messages and meanings of
Shostakovich’s works. Keller suggests they are like the Russian
matryoshka dolls. As with these dolls stacked inside each other,
Keller feels that just when you get comfortable, Shostakovich
twists the music apart to reveal another surprise inside.

Which leads me to the Shostakovich of elemental chemistry –
carbon, an element that I return to every so often as new
surprises are revealed. Our editor, Brian Trumbore, mentions
carbon in his Week in Review columns in connection with his
investment in the stock of a carbon fiber company. Carbon can
be the world’s hardest material, diamond, or one of its softer
materials, graphite – the “lead” in your pencil. We’ve talked
about fullerenes, in which carbon may be a buckyball (60 carbon
atoms arranged in a structure resembling a soccer ball) or a
nanotube. In a carbon nanotube, carbon atoms are arranged in
hexagons in a structure resembling a tube of rolled up chicken
wire.

You might not think that rolled up carbon “chicken wire” would
be exciting. Yet the amount of work on carbon nanotubes
worldwide is astounding and for good reason. A July 1, 2005
article on the Web site of the National Research Council (NRC)
of Canada describes carbon nanotubes as “ the world’s ultimate
material”! The article supports this view by noting that carbon
nanotubes are a hundred times stronger than steel and are the best
conductors of heat and electricity known to science. Carbon
nanotubes can also be superconductors as well as semiconductors
depending on how they’re tweaked mechanically or chemically.
They are indeed remarkable materials but there is a catch,

The catch lies in the “nano” in nanotube. These things are truly
tiny and to make any significant quantity of them has been a
challenge. The NRC article gives the world’s total production as
only 300 kilograms (about 660 pounds) a year and you could pay
up to $600 a gram to buy some. Nevertheless, the title of the
NRC article, “Building the Perfect Hockey Stick or Aircraft –
Carbon Nanotubes”, suggests that something is in the wings in
the way of mass production and cost reduction for the carbon
nanotube. And wouldn’t you know that, based in Canada, one
would think of an application in a hockey stick? Indeed, the
article describes an effort at NRC and the University of
Sherbrooke to mass-produce the nanotubes and then form a
composite resin containing the nanotubes. If the composite
performs well in the hockey stick, then it’s on to test the waters
in the aerospace market.

That was last year. Sure enough, I spotted a news item dated
March 6, 2006 in the Materials Research Society’s Materials
News that said a Finnish company has put multiwalled carbon
nanotubes in its ice hockey sticks. (Nanotubes come in single-
walled form or multiwalled form. In a single-walled nanotube,
the chicken wire structure is only one atom thick. In a
multiwalled nanotube, it’s like stacking chicken wire tubes inside
each other.) Well, I searched the Web for more on this
development and came up with the name of the Finnish company
- Montreal Sports! They’re serious and are marketing the new
“Nitro Lite” hockey sticks as having 60-70 percent greater
impact resistance and greater flexibility for better puck feel and
handling. And the Stanley Cup playoffs are just beginning. The
sticks reportedly have better flexibility compared to a composite
containing carbon fiber (sorry about that, Brian).

Montreal Sports uses nanotubes supplied by Bayer in Germany.
A visit to the Bayer MaterialScience Web site indicates that they
have a continuous cost-effective process for producing carbon
nanotubes, which look like black dust to the naked eye. They
don’t give a price but do say they have lowered the cost below
1,000 euros per kilogram, roughly a dollar a gram. Whatever the
figure, it’s clear that the cost trend is down and conducive to
commercial applications.

Aside from hockey sticks, research continues that may open up
new fields. One new field may have been opened up by Boston
College professors Jianyu Huang and Zhifeng Ren and their
students. They have made single-walled carbon nanotubes
“superstretchy” according to an article by Bethany Halford in the
January 23 Chemical and Engineering News. Single-walled
carbon nanotubes are very strong at room temperature and
workers haven’t been able to stretch them more than a few
percent before they break. However, the Boston researchers
found that when they put a voltage of a little over 2 volts across
one of these nanotubes they could stretch the little bugger more
than three times its length before it breaks.

They attribute this stretchiness to the fact that the current that
passes through the nanotube heats it up to about 2,000 degrees
Centigrade and the carbon atoms rearrange themselves when the
tube is pulled. This effect at high temperatures may be simply a
scientific curiosity or it might open up a new field of uses for
carbon nanotubes in high temperature composites, not just low
temperature hockey sticks.

Allen F. Bortrum