Student research opportunities

Sustainable carbon nanofibres: production and applications

Project Code: CECS_1129

This project is available at the following levels:
Honours, Masters, PhD

Keywords:

Nanotechnology, carbon nanofibre

Supervisor:

Assoc Professor Takuya Tsuzuki

Outline:

Carbon nanofibres are a novel class of engineering materials with excellent mechanical and electrical properties. They are suitable for wide ranging applications in many areas including electronics and medical science. However, the current production methods suffer from many drawbacks such as high cost, high impurity levels, involvement of hazardous chemicals and difficulty in scaling up their production. Cellulose is one of the materials traditionally used to produce conventional micron size carbon fibres by pyrolysis. It is expected that nano-sized cellulose fibres can be used to manufacture carbon nanofibres using the same technique. However, to date, there has been little research conducted on the carbonisation of cellulose nanofibres. Recently, our group has successfully developed the method to produce cellulose nanofibres from natural plant products, and demonstrated the production of carbon nanofibres from cellulose nanofibres in a carbon-neutral manner. This project explores the use of ‘green’ carbon nanofibres for energy and environmental applications.

Requirements/Prerequisites

- Understanding of physics, chemistry and materials science.

Contact: