The China Institute of Metrology has learned that the single-walled carbon nanotube chirality, length and purity standard materials developed by the institute have filled the gap in China's carbon-based nanomaterials value transfer system and provided technical support for breaking trade barriers.

 Although China is a big country in the production of carbon nanotubes, due to the lack of uniform national standards, carbon nanotube materials have encountered technical barriers to trade when they are exported.

The person in charge of the project and Ren Lingling, a researcher at the China Institute of Metrology, introduced that single-walled carbon nanotubes in carbon nanotube materials are used more. Single-walled carbon nanotubes with a purity of more than 90% have sold for more than $1,000 per gram, while less than 90% of the price per gram is only one-tenth. In order to avoid trade barriers, domestic single-walled carbon nanotubes can only be exported at less than 90% purity, and the loss per kilogram of exports is nearly 9 million yuan, which greatly restricts the development of China's carbon-based nanomaterials industry.

“Carbon-based nanomaterials have high requirements on measuring equipment and measurement methods due to their high scale and high surface energy due to the scale of nanometers.” Ren Lingling told reporters. Under the support of the National Science and Technology Support Program, the research team solved this problem after four years of research. "These standard materials are like a ruler. The results measured by different companies and different measuring devices through this ruler are consistent and comparable." Ren Lingling explained.

In addition, the research team has also established a laser confocal micro-Raman spectrometer measurement standard device, which can be used to accurately measure the structure, purity and other characteristics of carbon-based nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes and graphene, and trace the source to National spectral irradiance benchmark.(Source: China Metrology Network)