Fiscal Year:
2010
Title:
SBIR Phase I: Hollow carbon fibers based on gel spun polyacrylonitrile/carbon nanotubes
Agency:
NSF
Contract:
0945004
Award Amount:
$149,932.00
Abstract:
This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project aims to develop high tensile strength and low density polyacrylonitrile (PAN)/carbon nanotube (CNT) based carbon fibers. The approach is to use a newly-developed gel spun technology. Process conditions will be optimized to obtain a tensile strength greater than 7 GPa, a tensile modulus greater than 450 GPa, and a density less than 1.2 g/cm3. Current PAN-based commercial carbon fibers typically exhibit a tensile strength of 5 GPa, a tensile modulus of 300 GPa and a density of 1.8 g/cm3.
The broader/commercial impact of this project will be the potential to produce carbon fibers with significantly higher specific tensile strength and lower density than the current PAN-based commercial carbon fibers. The carbon fibers are currently used in high-performance composites for satellite, airplane fuselage, airplane wing and trust structures, high-performance automobile applications, etc, where energy efficiency is very important. This project will lead to nano-engineered carbon fibers and reduce the weight of composite materials, thus resulting in significant savings in energy consumption.
Small Business Information at Submission:
NEM corp
2349 Lake Forest Trail Lawrenceville, GA 30043
EIN/Tax ID:
900350650
DUNS:
N/A
Number of Employees:
Woman-Owned:
No
Minority-Owned:
No
HUBZone-Owned:
No