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Despite 30‐year development of carbon nanotube (CNT) based materials, harnessing the outstanding nanoscale properties of individual CNT for macroscale applications remains challenging. High specific surface area, a crucial feature of CNTs, often suffers from the formation of tightly packed bundles with inaccessible "dead space". Herein, a novel "microwave shock" approach to open the "dead space" trapped within bundles is reported. Employing N2 ambient during microwave irradiation, CNT bundles undergo an efficient structural alteration and interfacial modification simultaneously due to the strong radiative coupling, while the graphitic structure remains undamaged. In this way, a 15‐fold increase (from 42 to 648 m2 g−1) in the interstitial surface area as well as the lithiophilic functionalization (≈1 atom% nitrogen doping) are achieved without the degradation of other properties. Furthermore, to highlight the merits of this microwave shock process, the treated CNT films are applied as a host material for the anode in a lithium metal battery and demonstrate the suppression of dendritic lithium growth and improve cycling stability. This microwave shock approach provides an efficient avenue to modify nanocarbon‐based materials for further applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comprehensive characterization of various carbon nanotube (CNT) yarns provides insight for producing high-performance CNT yarns as well as a useful guide to select the proper yarn for a specific application. Herein we systematically investigate the correlations between the physical properties of six CNT yarns produced by three spinning methods, and their structures and the properties of the constituent CNTs. The electrical conductivity increases in all yarns regardless of the spinning method as the effective length of the constituent CNTs and the density of the yarns increase. On the other hand, the tensile strength shows a much stronger dependence on the packing density of the yarns than the CNT effective length, indicating the relative importance of the interfacial interaction. The contribution of each physical parameter to the yarn properties are quantitatively analyzed by partial least square regression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose tabular two-dimensional correlation spectroscopy analysis for extracting features from multifaceted characterization data, essential for understanding material properties. This method visualizes similarities and phase lags in structural parameter changes through heatmaps, combining hierarchical clustering and asynchronous correlations. We applied the proposed method to data sets of carbon nanotube (CNT) films annealed at various temperatures and revealed the complexity of their hierarchical structures, which include elements such as voids, bundles, and amorphous carbon. Our analysis addresses the challenge of attempting to understand the sequence of structural changes, especially in multifaceted characterization data where 11 structural parameters derived from eight characterization methods interact with complex behavior. The results show how phase lags (asynchronous changes from stimuli), and parameter similarities can illuminate the sequence of structural changes in materials, providing insights into phenomena such as the removal of amorphous carbon and graphitization in annealed CNTs. This approach is beneficial even with limited data and holds promise for a wide range of material analyses, demonstrating its potential in elucidating complex material behaviors and properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We successfully prepared a surfactant-assisted carbon nanotube (CNT) liquid crystal (LC) dispersion with double-walled CNTs (DWCNTs) having a high aspect ratio (≈1378). Compared to dispersions of single-walled CNTs (SWCNTs) with lower aspect ratio, the transition concentrations from isotropic phase to biphasic state, and from biphasic state to nematic phase are lowered, which is consistent with the predictions of the Onsager theory. An aligned DWCNT film was prepared from the DWCNT dispersion by a simple bar-coating method. Regardless of the higher aspect ratio, the order parameter obtained from the film is comparable to that from SWCNTs with lower aspect ratios. This finding implies that precise control of the film formation process, including a proper selection of substrate and deposition/drying steps, is crucial to maximize the CNT-LC utilization., (Copyright © 2024, Kojima et al.)