Arnhem, January 11, 2013 – Researchers at Teijin Aramid, based in the Netherlands, and Rice University in the USA today published their research findings on a new generation of super fibers in the leading scientific journal, Science. For the first time in history, it has been possible to spin carbon nanotubes (CNTs) into a super fiber that has very high thermal and electrical conductivity and good textile performance. Carbon nanotubes, the building blocks of the fiber, which is as thin as a strand of DNA, combine the best properties of thermal and electrical conductivity, strength, modulus and flexibility.

For several years, leading researchers at Rice University, including Nobel prize winner Richard Smalley (Chemistry, 1996), along with researchers at Teijin Aramid, have been working on producing carbon nanotubes and forming them into useful macroscopic objects with extraordinary, new performance properties. To spin a high-performance carbon nanotube textile thread (fiber), the nanotubes must be perfectly stacked and orientated along the fiber axis. The most efficient method to produce this high performance  fiber is to dissolve CNTs in a super acid, followed by wet-spinning. This is a patented process which has been used since the 1970s in spinning Teijin Aramid's Twaron super fiber.