The Hanoi Times - The Hanoi-based Institute for Material Sciences is selling carbon nanotubes (CNTs) at 50% of international price. The HCM City Hi-tech Park plans to produce 2.4 tonnes of CNTs this year.

The Deputy Director of the Institute for Material Sciences, Dr. Phan Ngoc Minh, said nano technology can bring about significant applications for society.

He is a member of the nano carbon material research group, which was presented the 18^th Youth Sci-tech Award for their CNTs. This product is about to receive a patent from the National Intellectual Property Office.

The Institute for Material Sciences’ laboratory can produce 100-300g of CNTs per day, with purity of 95% and production cost of around $0.6 per gram compared to $1/gram elsewhere in the world. The institute is currently researching the application of CNTs in production and life.

Dr. Minh said it is quite difficult to commercialise CNTs in Vietnam. Dr. Minh and his co-workers have actively sought clients and have found their first: the Hai Duong Pumping Machine Company and the Hung Yen Technological Teacher Training University.

At the HCM City Hi-tech Park,dr Nguyen Chanh Khe and his co-workers at the Research and Development Centre have used coffee grounds and megass to produce CNTs at low costs.

Last year, Dr. Khe produced dozens of tens of kilos of CNTs. He aims to produce 2.4 tonnes of CNTs this year. However, researchers expect to get state assistance to apply CNTs in production and life.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon with a nanostructure that can have a length-to-diameter ratio as large as 28,000,000:1[1], which is unequalled by any other material. These cylindrical carbon molecules have novel properties that make them potentially useful in many applications in nanotechnology, electronics, optics and other fields of material science, as well as potential uses in architectural fields.

They exhibit extraordinary strength and unique electrical properties, and are efficient conductors of heat. Their final usage, however, may be limited by their potential toxicity.

Nanotubes are members of the fullerene structural family, which also includes the spherical buckyballs. The ends of a nanotube might be capped with a hemisphere of the buckyball structure. Their name is derived from their size, since the diameter of a nanotube is o­n the order of a few nanometers (approximately 1/50,000th the width of a human hair), while they can be up to several millimeters in length (as of 2008). Nanotubes are categorised as single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs).

The nature of the bonding of a nanotube is described by applied quantum chemistry, specifically, orbital hybridisation. The chemical bonding of nanotubes is composed entirely of sp2 bonds, similar to those of graphite. This bonding structure, which is stronger than the sp3 bonds found in diamonds, provides the molecules with their unique strength.

Nanotubes naturally align themselves into "ropes" held together by Van der Waals forces. Under high pressure, nanotubes can merge together, trading some sp² bonds for sp³ bonds, giving the possibility of producing strong, unlimited-length wires through high-pressure nanotube linking.