25+ year journey to superstrong carbon nanotube bundles | NextBigFuture.com

In 1991, Sumio Iijima’s discovered multi-walled carbon nanotubes in the insoluble material of arc-burned graphite rods and Mintmire, Dunlap, and White’s independent prediction that if single-walled carbon nanotubes could be made, then they would exhibit remarkable conducting properties helped create the initial buzz that is now associated with carbon nanotubes. Nanotube research accelerated greatly following the independent discoveries by Bethune at IBM and Iijima at NEC of single-walled carbon nanotubes and methods to specifically produce them by adding transition-metal catalysts to the carbon in an arc discharge. It has been very difficult to make larger amounts of carbon nanotubes and