Carbon Nanotubes were discovered independently in 1991 as per Wikipedia. Will you believe it was used 2,600 years ago by ancient civilization? Yes, it was unearthed in Keeladi Excavation site. How many of you believe that Nano coating were used in clay pots they were using? We gonna see about Nano structure that too found in Keeladi.
What is Carbon Nanotube?
Carbon nanotubes are tubes made of carbon with diameters typically measured in nanometers.
Carbon nanotubes often refer to single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) with diameters in the range of a nanometer. They were discovered independently in 1991 by Iijima and Ichihashi and Bethune et al. in carbon arc chambers similar to those used to produce fullerenes. Single-wall carbon nanotubes are one of the allotropes of carbon, intermediate between fullerene cages and flat graphene.
More on Wikipedia
Was Carbon Nanotube really found in Keeladi Excavation site?
We are not talking about graphite or graphene, which we might have just heard in recent Darpa series. In Darpa series, they said they will be create synthetic cell through graphite and graphene. While hearing this news, many people were shocked and very few commented that to implement these technologies, it may take another 100 years.
But before 2600 years, that is, in 6th Century BC, Tamilians were using Nano technology. Shocking, right? It has been proved recently while unearthing a pot in Keeladi Excavation Site.
A 2600 year old earthenware coated with carbon Nanotubes was dig up in Madurai, Tamilnadu. Carbon Nanotubes have superlative properties, including high thermal and electrical conductivity and very high mechanical strength. This civilization were using those techonogies like it was nothing. Still the team is researching and important thing is that many reports were not published to the public yet.
Who are these Tamilians? What is their history, lifestyle and how it all started?
Everyone in the team were not interested to know about this, but one or two scientist wants to know these facts. They have found many broken potteries and Urai Kinaru (ground water wells), and many things made of clay. Their lifestyle involved using clay for all the household items.
During this research, scientists have found a unique black coating in clay pots, while researching deeper, they have discovered that these were kind of, Carbon Nanotubes.
The analysis revealed the presence of single, multi walled carbon nanotubes and layered sheets in the coating. The average diameter of single watted carbon nanotube found to be about 0.6 +/- 0.05 nm. Those dicovered pottery’s are still intact in its stability and adhension.
Carbon nanotubes (CNT) were discovered in 1991. Between 1994 and 2006, it was estimated that around 1,865 nanotube related patents were issued in the US, last year it was reported that “in the past 3 years the number of CNT related issued patents has almost tripled. For patents pending, a cumulative backlog close to 4500 applications.
What is meant by graphene? What is that structure?
It is a multi-layered carbon cell sheet called graphite. The last layer of carbon cell thats making as sheet is know as graphene. Carbon nanotubes are hollow, cylindrical structures, essentially a sheet of graphene rolled into a cylinder. This graphite and carbon nano tubes are sp2 bond related. Diamond is sp3 bond related variety. Graphene and carbon nanotubes are much more stronger than a diamond.
Graphene and Carbon nanotube (CNT)
Graphene and CNT are made with same substance, same bonding and made with same carbon cells. It is termed as wonder material in Scientific term. These wonder material is ideal conductors of electrical energy with higher tensile strength, extraordinarily flexible and elastic. It is excellent conductors of thermal energy, High aspect ratio, Excellent electron field emitters, Lower thermal expansion coefficient, etc etc..,
How many types of Carbon Nanotubes we can get?
In addition to the two different basic structures, there are three different possible types of carbon nanotubes. These three types of CNTs are armchair carbon nanotubes, zigzag carbon nanotubes, and chiral carbon nanotubes.
Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube (SWCNT) is a cylinder formed with only one layer (wall) of carbon molecules. These have fabricated in diameters ranging from 0.4 to 2 mm.
Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNTs), differ with SWCNTs by the number of cylindrical walls they have. In MWCNTs, the carbon molecules form multiple concentric walls of consequentially increasing diameters around one another.
Does these SWCNT and MWCNT form naturally?
Although it is generally assumed that CNT are naturally occuring and surprisingly there is no evidence for it. Though it is Single walled nanotube or Multi walled nano tube, an external force is required for forming. CNTs forms spontaneously because its structure represents a low energy configuration and hence favoured by nature. However, there is no published evidence to suggest this actually occurs without assistance.
Between 2020 and 2025, carbon nano tube worth may go beyond millions and billions. Before 2600 years, the Tamils would have needed an extra ordinary strong material to deal with such substances. They were having lot of substances but mainly they were having black soil a lot.
The story behind the Coated Pots:
The people were using clay pots for their daily uses. As it breaks down easily, they wanted to make it stronger. Then they decided to heat them immensely but still it did not work out. Then they planned to use some sort of coating as it shouldn’t break. By using trial and error method, they used extra ordinary strong coating to pots and heated upto 1400’c heat. It might have took lots of years to discover each and every substance and finally they discovered this CNT. Scientists are saying that they have applied some coating and heated to do stronger pots.
Is the found pottery single walled carbon nanotube or multi walled carbon nano tube and what is it’s level?
Carbon nanotube is 50000 smaller than our hair whether it is SWCNT or MWCNT. Each nanotube is a single molecule composed of millions of atoms and the length of this molecule can be tens of micrometers long with diameters as small as 0.7 nm. Wheres diameter of MWCNT is 15 nm and > 50 nm.
For SWCNT diameter reported was 0.43 nm. It was surprisingly to observe SWCNT from an archaeological artefact with 0.6 +/- 0.05 nm and has been stable for around 2600 years. And it shows MWCNT observed from the coating. The spacing between the walls and found to be as 0.34 nm which is good agreement with the spacing between the (002) lattice plane of the graphite. Also, the inner diameter of the MWCNT is 3 +/- 0.15 nm. It is interesting to know the presence of CNTs from the samples that date backs to 6th century BC.
Is it verified information?
No, these were some of the points we could get from various sources and we wanted to share these to all the scientists around the world. Many are suggesting that the research has been overshadowed by the govt of India. We do not want to go deeper in that.
If you have any other points to share or discuss, please submit your thoughts in the comments below.
