Fluffy carbon nanotubes produced by shearing vertically aligned carbon nanotube arrays

Abstract Fluffy carbon nanotubes (CNTs), which are cotton-like macroscopic structures, are obtained by simple high-speed shearing of vertically aligned CNT (VACNT) arrays. The fluffy CNTs are composed of CNT bundles with a diameter of several micrometers, and have an extremely low apparent density of 3–10 g/L. A requisite for their formation is the alignment of CNTs in the initial array. The shear between the rotor and the arrays tears the arrays along the axial direction and this results in their dispersion into low density fluffy CNTs.