Commercial production of fullerenes and carbon nanotubes

It has been slightly over ten years since the development of a way to produce macroscopic quantities of fullerene, and the related discovery of fullerene nanotubes. As a result, over 1500 worldwide patents have been filed for the production and applications of these new materials. These applications are so wide ranging that they extend across different industries with products from additives to polymers, photoconductors, photo-resists, and bio-active agents to cosmetics. MER Corporation in Tucson, Arizona joined the ranks of fullerene enthusiasts at the beginning of its discovery by immediately licensing the Huffman-Kratschmer patents. While we are widely recognized as a producer of fullerene and nanotubes, MER has also been active in developing applications for fullerenes and nanotubes. The different applications investigated by MER will be reviewed in subsequent chapters. The overriding factor for the success of any of these applications, however, is the price of fullerenes. However, the price cannot come down markedly until large-scale applications are found. To introduce the first large-scale application an organization had to take a leap of faith and initiate the large-scale low-cost production. Mitsubishi/FIC Corporations has been a leader and pioneer in recognizing the need to support large-scale production effort to realize the fullerene and nano-technology commercialization dream. It is now our opportunity to realize the commercial applications. The present status of the scale-up production effort of fullerenes and the different nanotubes will be presented in this chapter.