The nanotubes

Résumé du document

A carbon nanotube is a molecule of pure carbon, as it is the case for graphite and diamond. Its shape is the one of a tube, whose diameter measures about one nanometre, thus 100 times thinner than a single hair. Carbon nanotubes are the most common kind of nanotubes on which the industry is working on for the moment. When not explicitly written in this paper, nanotubes refer to carbon nanotubes. The particularity and the newness of the nanotubes is situated in their extraordinary properties, it is 100 times more resistant than steel, twice as light as aluminium, better electrical conductor than copper, and better thermal conductor than diamond. It also has excellent mechanical properties, being elastic and hollow, and is biocompatible.

Extraits

[...] There are two ways to use nanotubes to innovate. The first one is as a “nano-object”: the nanotube is used as an object itself (for example as a small box containing a medical molecule). Those kinds of innovations are mainly of radical type. The second way is in a “macro-object”: many nanotubes are added to other materials in order to modify their properties. Those innovations are usually of incremental type. One example of incremental innovation already in use is fireproof cables made of a mix of polymers, clay and nanotubes. [...]

[...] Mass production of nanotubes intended to modify macro-objects properties was continually improved and some nanotubes powder producers emerged around the world. However, some types of nanotubes (e.g. very thin multi-walled nanotubes) are still difficult and/or expensive to produce. R&D about exploiting nanotubes as a nano-object has not yet lead to significant mass production results and is still going on. In 1998, the CVD process (Chemical Vapor Deposition Process) was invented which allowed making nanotubes growing on the exact way and place that was needed[8]. What are the firms that benefited the most from the innovation? [...]

[...] When? In 1991, Sumio Iijima, a Japanese physicist working for a Japanese information technologies company (NEC Corporation) discovered the carbon nanotubes hazardously while working on another form of carbon[4]. Those nanostructures were impossible to observe before, due to a lack of observation tools. This explains why nanotubes were discovered so late while they existed before. What are the key stages of development of the diffusion of the innovation? Who were the persons/organisations involved? After the discovery of the nanotubes, many scientists begun to study them and to share information about them all around the world. [...]

[...] There are many financial, technological and social obstacles. The researches necessary to transform a discovery into innovation can be very expensive and never succeed, and some unexpected risks can intervene anytime. The case also shows that entering a technology race is a big bet, where all risks, sources of uncertainties and potential benefits have to be carefully studied. One big difficulty is to estimate the probabilities of success and delays. For new high-technologies like nanotubes, the uncertainties concerning results are very high. [...]

[...] What is the innovation? What is new? What has changed as a consequence? The particularity and the newness of the nanotubes are situated in their extraordinary properties : it is 100 times more resistant than steel, twice lighter than aluminium, better electrical conductor than copper, and better thermal conductor than diamond[1],[2]. It also has excellent mechanical properties, being elastic and hollow, and is biocompatible. An innovation can be defined as development and successive refinements of inventions into products or techniques ( Considering this definition, we can say that nanotubes do not constitute an innovation. [...]