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Title: Lightweight, flexible, high-performance carbon nanotube cables made by scalable flow coating

Abstract

Coaxial cables for data transmission are ubiquitous in telecommunications, aerospace, automotive, and robotics industries. Yet, the metals used to make commercial cables are unsuitably heavy and stiff. These undesirable traits are particularly problematic in aerospace applications, where weight is at a premium and flexibility is necessary to conform with the distributed layout of electronic components in satellites and aircraft. The cable outer conductor (OC) is usually the heaviest component of modern data cables; therefore, exchanging the conventional metallic OC for lower weight materials with comparable transmission characteristics is highly desirable. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have recently been proposed to replace the metal components in coaxial cables; however, signal attenuation was too high in prototypes produced so far. Here, we fabricate the OC of coaxial data cables by directly coating a solution of CNTs in chlorosulfonic acid (CSA) onto the cable inner dielectric. This coating has an electrical conductivity that is approximately 2 orders of magnitude greater than the best CNT OC reported in the literature to date. In conclusion, this high conductivity makes CNT coaxial cables an attractive alternative to commercial cables with a metal (tin-coated copper) OC, providing comparable cable attenuation and mechanical durability with a 97% lower component mass.

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [1];  [1];  [5];  [1];  [1];  [6];  [3];  [3];  [1]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States)
  2. National Institute of Standard and Technology, Boulder, CO (United States); National Institute of Standard and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD (United States)
  3. National Institute of Standard and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD (United States)
  4. National Institute of Standard and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD (United States); Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  5. National Institute of Standard and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD (United States); Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
  6. National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
1261521
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC05-00OR22725
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 8; Journal Issue: 7; Journal ID: ISSN 1944-8244
Publisher:
American Chemical Society
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; carbon nanotubes; coaxial cables; dip-coating; attenuation; rheology; transport properties; films; networks; shear; calibration; conductors; liquid

Citation Formats

Mirri, Francesca, Orloff, Nathan D., Forser, Aaron M., Ashkar, Rana, Headrick, Robert J., Bengio, E. Amram, Long, Christian J., Choi, April, Luo, Yimin, Hight Walker, Angela R., Butler, Paul, Migler, Kalman B., and Pasquali, Matteo. Lightweight, flexible, high-performance carbon nanotube cables made by scalable flow coating. United States: N. p., 2016. Web. doi:10.1021/acsami.5b11600.
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Mirri, Francesca, Orloff, Nathan D., Forser, Aaron M., Ashkar, Rana, Headrick, Robert J., Bengio, E. Amram, Long, Christian J., Choi, April, Luo, Yimin, Hight Walker, Angela R., Butler, Paul, Migler, Kalman B., & Pasquali, Matteo. Lightweight, flexible, high-performance carbon nanotube cables made by scalable flow coating. United States. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.5b11600
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Mirri, Francesca, Orloff, Nathan D., Forser, Aaron M., Ashkar, Rana, Headrick, Robert J., Bengio, E. Amram, Long, Christian J., Choi, April, Luo, Yimin, Hight Walker, Angela R., Butler, Paul, Migler, Kalman B., and Pasquali, Matteo. Thu . "Lightweight, flexible, high-performance carbon nanotube cables made by scalable flow coating". United States. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.5b11600. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1261521.
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@article{osti_1261521,
title = {Lightweight, flexible, high-performance carbon nanotube cables made by scalable flow coating},
author = {Mirri, Francesca and Orloff, Nathan D. and Forser, Aaron M. and Ashkar, Rana and Headrick, Robert J. and Bengio, E. Amram and Long, Christian J. and Choi, April and Luo, Yimin and Hight Walker, Angela R. and Butler, Paul and Migler, Kalman B. and Pasquali, Matteo},
abstractNote = {Coaxial cables for data transmission are ubiquitous in telecommunications, aerospace, automotive, and robotics industries. Yet, the metals used to make commercial cables are unsuitably heavy and stiff. These undesirable traits are particularly problematic in aerospace applications, where weight is at a premium and flexibility is necessary to conform with the distributed layout of electronic components in satellites and aircraft. The cable outer conductor (OC) is usually the heaviest component of modern data cables; therefore, exchanging the conventional metallic OC for lower weight materials with comparable transmission characteristics is highly desirable. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have recently been proposed to replace the metal components in coaxial cables; however, signal attenuation was too high in prototypes produced so far. Here, we fabricate the OC of coaxial data cables by directly coating a solution of CNTs in chlorosulfonic acid (CSA) onto the cable inner dielectric. This coating has an electrical conductivity that is approximately 2 orders of magnitude greater than the best CNT OC reported in the literature to date. In conclusion, this high conductivity makes CNT coaxial cables an attractive alternative to commercial cables with a metal (tin-coated copper) OC, providing comparable cable attenuation and mechanical durability with a 97% lower component mass.},
doi = {10.1021/acsami.5b11600},
journal = {ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces},
number = 7,
volume = 8,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Jan 21 00:00:00 EST 2016},
month = {Thu Jan 21 00:00:00 EST 2016}
}
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https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.5b11600
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