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Tuesday, April 12, 2011

#MATERIAL: "Biodegradable replacement proposed for indium tin"

Combining carbon nanotubes with a conductive polymer could enable transparent conductors that not only replace increasingly short supplies of indium tin oxide (ITO), but which are biodegradable to boot. The new transparent conducting film could be used in liquid-crystal display televisions, cell-phones, laptops and other displays as well as for solar cells.


Cor Koning (left) and Paul van der Schoot inspect the black pot containing a dispersion of carbon nanotubes in water, and the white pot which contains the conducting latex. Photo credit: Bart van Overbeeke.

Researchers at the Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands) have developed a replacement for ITO that can be produced with simple solution-based processing at room temperature using widely available carbon nanotubes mixed with a specially formulated latex polymer. The resulting conductive thin film makes scant use of nanotubes, which account for less than one percent of the material's weight, making it completely transparent and yet highly conductive.
Further Reading: http://bit.ly/NextGenLog-hm4w