Perspectives of Nano-Carbon Based Engineering Materials

• Published in: Advanced engineering materials Vol. 17; no. 2; pp. 124 - 137
• Main Author: Greil, Peter
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.02.2015
• Subjects: Carbon; Density; Economics; Graphene; Mechanical properties; Nanoparticles; Nanostructure; Reduction
• ISSN: 1438-1656; 1527-2648
• DOI: 10.1002/adem.201400110

Nano‐carbon materials attained considerable scientific interest due to their unique physico‐chemical properties. Much less reports can be found on transferring the unique properties of super‐strong individual nanoparticles like carbon nanotubes and graphene nanoplatelets into load bearing engineering materials. After reviewing structure and properties of nano‐carbon properties the size effect governing the reduction of inherent mechanical properties upon transfer into macroscopic engineering materials is considered. While the potential of mechanical property enhancement of composites with random orientation of elongated carbon nanoparticles is limited by very low percolation thresholds, manufacturing of aligned microstructures, and tailoring of nanoparticle/matrix interface offers plenty of space for optimizing the mechanical properties of composites subjected to tensile loads. Since compression is the more common loading situation for ultra low‐density nano‐carbon materials the collapse stress is important for deriving design limits of nanoporous carbon materials. At the same level of density materials with nanotube or sheet carbon allotropes forming the struts may be expected to achieve a compression strength orders of magnitude higher than the porous graphitic materials. Finally, economic aspects of nano‐carbon manufacturing are discussed. Considerable progress has been achieved over the past few years in exploiting development of several novel forms and assembly structures of nano‐carbon materials and their composites. The size effect governing the reduction of inherent mechanical properties upon transfer into macroscopic engineering materials is considered. Optimization potentials of nanoparticle and nanoporous carbon materials as well as economic aspects are discussed.