DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS & COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING

ARYA INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY

SP-40, RIICO INDUSTRIAL AREA, JAIPUR (RAJASTHAN) 302 022
SP-40, RIICO INDUSTRIAL AREA, JAIPUR (RAJASTHAN) 302 022

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the seminar report on CARBON NANOTUBE

FLOW SENSOR is submitted by SACHIN (13EAIEC126) in partial
fulfil for the award of degree of Bachelor of Technology in Electronics &
Communication has been found satisfactory and is approved for submission.

Er. Aanchal Mathur Er.Mahima Agrawal

Er. Ravisankar Upadhyay (SeminarGuide)
(Seminar Coordinator) Assistant Prof.
Assistant Prof. Dept. ofElectronics& Comm. Engg.
Dept. of Electronics& Comm. Engg.

Er. Ashok Kajla

Prof.& Head
Dept.of Electronics& Comm. Engg.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I take this opportunity to express my profound gratitude and deep regards to my Seminar
Guide Er. Mahima Agrawal and my Seminar Coordinators Er. Aanchal Mathur and Er.
Ravisankar Upadhyay for their guidance, monitoring and constant help which I received
while making this report on CARBON NANOTUBE FLOW SENSOR.

I owe my profound gratitude to Er. Ashok Kajla, Head, Electronics & Communication
Department for kind patronage and generosity. I express my thanks to Dr. (Prof.) R.C.
Bansal, Principal, Arya Instiute of Engineering and Technology for kind cooperation and
extensible support towards the completion of the seminar.

A great deal of thanks to Dr. Arvind Agarwal and Dr. Puja Agarwal and the entire faculty
member for imparting knowledge and success of the seminar.

A Seminar of this type naturally gained number of ideas of the field of Electronics and
Communication Engineering. We would also like to express our heartfelt appreciation to all
other people who helped me.

SACHIN
13EAIEC126
BTech-IV Yr, VIII Sem.
Electronics & Comm. Engg

ABSTRACT
Direct generation of measurable voltages and currents is possible when a fluids flows over a
variety of solids even at the modest speed of a few meters per second. In case of gases
underlying mechanism is an interesting interplay of Bernoulli's principle and the Seebeck
effect: Pressure differences along streamlines give rise to temperature differences across the
sample; these in turn produce the measured voltage. The electrical signal is quadratically
dependent on the Mach number M and proportional to the Seebeck coefficient of the solids.
This discovery was made by professor Ajay sood and his student Shankar Gosh of IISC
Bangalore, they had previously discovered that the flow of liquids, even at low speeds
ranging from 10-1 metre/second to 10-7 m/s (that is, over six orders of magnitude), through
bundles of atomic-scale straw-like tubes of carbon known as nanotubes, generated tens of
micro volts across the tubes in the direction of the flow of the liquid.

Results of experiment done by Professor Sood and Ghosh show that gas flaw
sensors and energy conversion devices can be constructed based on direct generation of
electrical signals. The experiment was done on single wall carbon naontubes (SWNT).These
effect is not confined to naotubes alone these are also observed in doped semiconductors
and metals.

The observed effect immediately suggests the following technology application,

namely gas flow sensors to measure gas velocities from the electrical signal generated.
Unlike the existing gas flow sensors, which are based on heat transfer mechanisms from an
electrically heated sensor to the fluid, a device based on this newly discovered effect would
be an active gas flow sensor that gives a direct electrical response to the gas flow. One of
the possible applications can be in the field of aerodynamics; several local sensors could be
mounted on the aircraft body or aerofoil to measure streamline velocities and the effect of
drag forces.

Energy conversion devices can be constructed based on direct generation of

electrical signals i.e. if one is able to cascade millions these tubes electric energy can be
produced.
 CONTENT
TITLE PAGE NO.
CERTIFICATE I

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT II

ABSTRACT III

CHAPTER 1 : CARBON NANOTUBES (CNTS 1-3

1.1 INTRODUCTION 1-2
1.2. HISTORY 2-3
1.3. DISCOVERY 3
CHAPTER 2:CNT STRUCTURE AND GENERAL 4-11
PROPERTIES
2.1 CLASSIFICATION OF CARBON NANOTUBES 7-8
2.1.1 SINGLE-WALLED NANOTUBES (SWNTS) 7
2.1.2 MULTI-WALLED NANOTUBES (MWNT) 8
2.2 OTHER CARBON NANOTUBE STRUCTURES 9-11
CHAPTER 3:SYNTHESIS OF CARBON NANOTUBES 12-15
3.1 ARC DISCHARGE METHOD:- 13
3.2 LASER ABLATION 14
3.3 CHEMICAL VAPOR DEPOSITION (CVD) 14-15
CHAPTER 4:MILESTONES IN CNT EVOLUTION 16-23
4.1 PROPERTIES OF CARBON NANOTUBES 16-18
4.2 CNT ELECTRONIC PROPERTIES 18-20
4.3 COMPARISON OF MECHANICAL PROPERTIES 20
4.4 DEFECTS 21
4.5 ADVANTAGES 21
4.6 DISADVANTAGES 22
4.7 APPLICATIONS 22-23
CHAPTER 5:FLUID FLOW THROUGH CARBON 24-37
NANOTUBE
5.1 Effect of Liquid Flow through Nanotube 24-30
5.2 Applications 30
5.3 Effect of Gas Flow over Carbon Nanotubes 30-36
5.4 Applications 37
CONCLUSION 38
REFERENCES 39
 FIGURE INDEX
FIGURE PAGE
FIGURE NAME
NO. NO.
Fig.2.1 Schematic representation of structures of carbon nanotubes 4
(A, A1) armchair, (B, B1) Zigzag and (C, C1) Chiral SWNTs.
Fig 2.2 Relation between the hexagonal carbon lattice and the 5
chirality of Carbon Nanotubes.
Fig 2.3 Single walled CNTS (Graphical Representation) 7
Fig 2.4 MULTI-WALLED CNT 8
Fig 2.5 Torus 9
Fig 2.6 Nanobud 10
Fig 2.7 NITROGEN DOPED CARBON NANOTUBES 11
Fig 3.1 Synthesis of carbon nanotube 12
Fig 3.2 ARC DISCHARGE METHOD 13
Fig 3.3 LASER ABLATION 14
Fig 3.4 CVD 15
Fig 4.1 Electronic properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes. 19
Fig 5.1 Experimental setup where R is thereservoir, L is the valve 26
controlling the liquid flow, S is the cylindricalglass flow
chamber, and G is the Voltmeter.
Fig 5.2 (a) Schematic of the experimental setup. The flow rate at the 32
exit point is deduced from the measured flow rate at the side
port using the rotameter.
(b) Sample: shaded portions mark the electrodes.
Fig 5.3 Voltage across the n-Ge sample as a function of time when the 33
gas flow (u= 7 ms) over the sample is switched on and off
Fig5.4 Data plotted versus M2 33
Fig 5.5 Voltage V over a large range of values of M2 34