Tomorrow is Today

MIT Develops Carbon Nanotube Pencil That Can Draw Electronic Circuits

In a normal pencil, the lead is usually fashioned out of graphite and a clay binder… When you write or draw with a graphite pencil, a mixture of tiny graphene flakes and clay are deposited on the paper, creating a mark.

…With MIT’s carbon nanotube pencil, the lead is formed by compressing single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT), until you have a substance that looks and behaves very similarly to graphite. The difference, though, is that drawing with MIT’s pencil actually deposits whole carbon nanotubes on paper…

There are two main takeaways here. The first is that MIT has found a form of carbon nanotubes that is stable, safe, and cheap to produce. Second, carbon nanotubes have been used in sensors before, but usually the process involves dissolving SWCNTs in solvents, which can be dangerous. Here, creating a carbon nanotube sensor is as simple as drawing on a piece of paper — either by a human, or an automated process.

(via MIT creates carbon nanotube pencil, doodles some electronic circuits | ExtremeTech)