Morning all, and welcome to the second edition of the CNT Dispatch here on Substack. Thanks for all the amazing feedback on last month's Primer.
We are iterating on the format, so if you have any suggestions do get in touch in the comments. A few people wondered if we can highlight some keys news and research from the month, and if you ask, you shall receive:
Top CNT Developments You Might Have Missed
Summer 2025 brought some significant carbon nanotube breakthroughs that validate the industrial transition we've been tracking.
1. Rice researchers unveil 'surprising' breakthrough in carbon nanotube recycling // Rice University News
Researchers at Rice University demonstrated that CNT fibers can be fully recycled without losing any properties. Not degraded, not downcycled, 100% retention of mechanical strength, electrical conductivity, and thermal performance.
Why this matters: Remember how I mentioned CNTs are moving from lab curiosities to industrial materials? This solves the waste management nightmare that killed adoption of other advanced materials at scale. Unlike carbon fiber (which can only be chopped up) or polymers (which degrade each cycle), CNTs now have a genuine circular economy story. Published in Carbon, this isn't just academic—it's the kind of sustainability credential that procurement departments actually care about.
2. Global Market for Carbon Nanotubes Report 2026-2036 // GlobeNewswire
New analysis projects CNT market growth from $5+ billion today to over $25 billion by 2036, with energy storage as the fastest-growing sector.
Why this matters: This validates everything we've been saying about CNTs transitioning from hype to industrial reality. The $25B projection aligns perfectly with our earlier market analysis, and energy storage driving growth confirms that batteries remain the commercial beachhead. More importantly, having 180+ companies in the value chain signals real ecosystem development—this isn't a few research labs anymore, it's a proper industry with suppliers, integrators, and end users.
3. Breakthrough in carbon nanotube patterning // University of Surrey
University of Surrey's Dr. Simon King developed a "universal precursor" that lets you grow CNTs using standard inkjet printing, spray painting, or stamping. No more energy-intensive, time-consuming patterning processes.
Why this matters: This is exactly the "kill the friction" breakthrough I highlighted as crucial for CNT adoption. Instead of requiring specialized equipment and PhD chemists, manufacturers can now use existing printing infrastructure. It's the difference between CNTs being a boutique research material and becoming a standard manufacturing input. When you can inkjet print CNT circuits, you've officially reached plug-and-play territory.
4. Carbon nanotube wires for wearables crafted from existing fiber manufacturing // Phys.org
Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute successfully fabricated functional CNT wires for wearable electronics using standard synthetic fiber processing methods, creating lightweight, high-conductivity wires from single-walled CNTs.
Why this matters: This demonstrates CNTs enabling "products that couldn't exist before"—exactly the full-stack play I identified as the smartest investment angle. We're moving beyond CNTs as additives into CNTs as the foundation for entirely new product categories. Wearable electronics with CNT wires aren't just better performing, they're fundamentally different from what's possible with metal wires. This is where the "smart materials" future actually starts.
Now, turning to last month's primer and the meat of this edition:
"Turns out carbon nanotubes are a real thing now. Serious volumes for some high-value, fast growing markets with EV batteries, aerospace and construction materials. My key learning is that CNTs are not just replacements, they are additives that seemingly make a ton of materials better. This makes the path to adoption much faster and easier than a 'pure-play replacement' material."
Well, yes true. But also, we need to talk about price. Everything is on a performance versus price curve somewhere. You can probably build a space elevator today if you wanted, but at what cost? And honestly, CNTs are quite weird. It has one of the most dramatic pricing spreads in industrial materials, where identical-sounding products command prices that vary by over 1,000%. It represents real confusion that creates barriers for industrial buyers who cannot easily evaluate what they're buying.
Understanding this pricing spread means understanding that "carbon nanotube" is more like "computer chip" than "steel rod." Just as a MediaTek smartphone processor costs $15 while an NVIDIA H100 AI chip is $25,000 - both are silicon semiconductors, yet have very different performance requirements. CNTs exist both as bulk materials and exotic nanomaterials. So today we ask: why do carbon nanotubes costs vary so wildly?
To make this concrete: a kilogram of industrial-grade multi-walled CNTs for plastic reinforcement costs around $40, while ultra-pure single-walled CNTs for semiconductor applications hit $8,000+ per kilogram. But both get called "carbon nanotubes" on spec sheets, and buyers often can't tell which one they actually need for their application. Smells to me like a problem.
1. How Do We Make Carbon Nanotubes?
The carbon nanotube (CNT) market splits along manufacturing lines, with prices ranging from under $40/kg to over $8,000/kg. The production method determines price, driven by differences in capital costs, yields, technical complexity, and scalability.
The Popcorn Machine: Fluidized Bed CVD – $40–100/kg for Multi-Walled CNTs. The fluidized bed method is the lowest-cost approach. It uses mature industrial tech: gas flows upward through solid catalyst particles, suspending them in a fluid-like state. This enables efficient heat and mass transfer at 600–1000°C. It's cheap because it's a century-old process with high yields (95–99%) and rapid production rates. In China, CNTs are often made as byproducts, further reducing cost. Companies like Cnano, Timesnano, Nanocyl, and LG Chem leverage existing industrial setups for continuous operation and the lowest cost per kg.
Precision Oven: Standard Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) – $100–500/kg. Standard CVD also runs at high temperatures but uses fixed catalyst beds and controlled gas flow in enclosed reactors. It scales well and delivers consistent output but requires more complex equipment and tighter process control. This drives up both capital and operating costs. Companies like Arkema and Showa Denko use this method to produce high-quality multi-walled CNTs with better consistency, justifying higher prices.
The Michelin-Star Kitchen: Specialized CVD for Single-Walled CNTs ($2,000–8,000+/kg). Advanced methods like plasma-enhanced CVD, floating catalyst systems, HiPCO, and CoMoCat are tailored for premium single-walled CNTs. These techniques demand sophisticated equipment, tight reaction control, and deep technical know-how—raising both barriers to entry and cost. OCSiAl is a leader with ~97% global share of single-walled CNTs via a continuous plasma process. Their technical edge commands a significant pricing premium, as few can operate at commercial scale.
Lightning In A Box: Arc Discharge – Research Quantities Only. Arc discharge uses high-voltage current between carbon electrodes (~4,000°C) in inert gas to form CNTs. Arc discharge can produce highly crystalline, low-defect, and uniform-diameter CNTs, often better than early CVD methods. For researchers studying fundamental properties, this matters more than cost or scalability. While it can produce high-quality single-walled tubes, it's limited by ~70% yields, massive energy use, and batch-only operation.
The Laser Printer for Nanotubes: Laser ablation vaporizes graphite-metal targets with high-powered lasers at ~1200°C in inert gas. It yields top-quality single-walled CNTs with excellent structural uniformity. But the method has fundamental limits: low yields, expensive laser systems, and the need for premium graphite feedstock.
The Real Cost: Functionalization & Dispersion
Most customers don't buy raw CNT powder. They buy dispersions, masterbatches, or pre-treated forms, where the real technical difficulty lies. These formats often cost 2–5x more than raw CNTs. A battery maker might pay $200/kg for a CNT masterbatch that contains $40/kg of raw CNTs, due to the difficulty of achieving uniform dispersion. This hidden supply chain explains why raw material costs often represent only 20–30% of what end-users pay.
2. How Good Are They Exactly?
Unlike traditional materials where price rises linearly with quality, CNT pricing jumps exponentially with subtle changes in specs. That's because each quality parameter, structure, aspect ratio, purity, and form, directly affects manufacturing complexity, yields, and end-use performance.
Single-walled CNTs (SWCNTs) command 10–50x premiums over multi-walled CNTs (MWCNTs) due to their unique atomic structure. They enable applications MWCNTs can't touch: quantum computing needs semiconducting SWCNTs at 99.9999% purity; transparent conductive films rely on SWCNTs for conductivity and optical transparency; high-frequency electronics depend on exact chirality requiring sophisticated sorting methods.
In batteries, MWCNTs at $100/kg improve conductivity ~10–15%, requiring ~2% loading. SWCNTs at $5,000/kg can boost conductivity ~25–30% at just 0.3% loading. In a $10,000 EV battery pack, an extra $500 in CNTs can unlock $2,000+ in performance gains.
Aspect ratio—the length-to-diameter ratio—is a core quality marker. High aspect ratio tubes create more efficient, continuous conductive networks at lower loadings. In composites, carbon black requires 20–30% loading to achieve conductivity; long CNTs can do it at 0.1%.
Purity drives some of the steepest price increases. 95% purity MWCNTs work fine for structural uses. Electronics demand ultra-pure CNTs: even 50 ppm of iron impurities can cause charge leakage in transistors. Improving from 95% to 99% adds $20–40/kg. Going beyond 99.99% requires multiple separation steps with 10–30% yield loss per stage, turning a $40 raw input into $1,000–2,000/kg ultra-pure material.
Form determines how well CNT properties translate into real-world applications. Continuous mats and aligned arrays preserve tube orientation and structure—key for applications like thermal interfaces. Carbice's vertically aligned arrays reach 3,000 W/mK because each tube functions independently.
3. Who's Buying?
High-volume applications such as batteries, expected to consume 50,000 metric tons annually by 2032, create pricing pressure that enables economies of scale. CNTs improve conductivity by over 10 percent compared to carbon black while cutting additive usage by 30 percent.
In performance-critical markets, price reflects capabilities, not production volume. Semiconducting CNTs enable device characteristics that no other material can match, commanding 10 to 50 times the price of commodity CNTs. In aerospace, performance requirements completely overshadow cost—customers accept prices 3 to 5 times higher in exchange for quality guarantees and long-term consistency.
A big issue across the industry is the gap between product specs and customer understanding. Buyers often run in-house tests and compare results to familiar materials without grasping why prices vary. This disconnect leads to inefficiencies—premium products earn fat margins only after extensive trials and validation.
4. Can We Make It At Home?
China's production dominance provides 20–40% cost advantages through integrated supply chains, government support, and the ability to utilize CNTs as byproducts from other chemical processes. Western producers justify premium pricing through quality differentiation and supply chain security.
China's 20–40% cost advantage creates a strategic vulnerability. When 70% of industrial CNT production happens in China, supply disruptions become existential risks. This explains why aerospace and defense applications pay 3–5x premiums for Western-produced CNTs—they're buying supply chain security, not just materials. Tesla learned this lesson when COVID disrupted Chinese CNT supplies for their battery production in 2020, leading to a strategic shift toward North American suppliers despite 40% higher costs.
5. Will They Get Cheaper?
Industry projections suggest costs could decrease by at least an order of magnitude over five to ten years through standardization, technology development, and intensifying competition.
Current pricing opacity stems largely from incomplete standardization. Comprehensive CNT characterization requiring multiple analytical techniques can cost $10,000–50,000 per evaluation. As standardization improves and testing costs decrease, current market inefficiencies will gradually resolve into clear performance and cost tiers.
CNTs don't win everywhere. Graphene beats CNTs for thin-film applications requiring maximum surface area. Carbon fiber dominates structural applications where mechanical properties matter more than electrical conductivity. Silver nanowires often win for transparent conductors despite higher costs because they're easier to process.
6. So What Do I Do?
For buyers: start with your performance requirements, not material specifications. If you need 10% conductivity improvement, industrial MWCNTs at $100/kg probably work. If you need 50% improvement with minimal loading, expect to pay $2,000+/kg for specialized SWCNTs.
The CNT industry is at an inflection point. The sweet spot appears to be 2025–2027, when production scaling reduces costs but before commoditization eliminates differentiation opportunities. Companies entering now can establish supplier relationships and technical expertise before the market transforms.
