Commercial Buckypaper 12 Months Away, Says US Academic

According to Ben Wang, Director of Florida State University's High-Performance Materials Institute, the institute has made buckypaper which half as strong as the composite material IM7.

Apparently, Florida State has got round the problem of getting all the carbon nanotubes to face the same way by using magnets.

"By the end of next year we should have a buckypaper composite as strong as IM7, and it's 35 percent lighter," Wang told the San Jose Mercury.

Florida State is preparing to set up a company to manufacture commercial buckypaper and Wang said: ""Our plan is perhaps in the next 12 months we'll begin maybe to have some commercial products. Nanotubes obviously are no longer just lab wonders. They have real world potential. It's real."