Hybtonite is trademark of Amroy Europe Oy for carbon nanoepoxy

resins In polymer chemistry and materials science, resin is a solid or highly viscous substance of plant or synthetic origin that is typically convertible into polymers. Resins are usually mixtures of organic compounds. This article focuses on natu ...

. It is a family of composite resins reinforced with

carbon nanotubes A scanning tunneling microscopy image of a single-walled carbon nanotube Rotating single-walled zigzag carbon nanotube A carbon nanotube (CNT) is a tube made of carbon with diameters typically measured in nanometers. ''Single-wall carbon nan ...

(CNTs). The material and the manufacturing method were originally developed in the Nanoscience Center of the

University of Jyväskylä The University of Jyväskylä ( fi, Jyväskylän yliopisto) is a research university in Jyväskylä, Finland. It has its origins in the first Finnish-speaking Teacher Training College (the so-called Teacher Seminary), founded in 1863. Ar ...

during the years 2002 to 2004. Ultrasound is used to disperse the nanotubes and to create radicals at the ends of CNT molecules. CNTs can then chemically react with

epoxy Epoxy is the family of basic components or cured end products of epoxy resins. Epoxy resins, also known as polyepoxides, are a class of reactive prepolymers and polymers which contain epoxide groups. The epoxide functional group is also coll ...

resin or other material forming strong

covalent bond A covalent bond is a chemical bond that involves the sharing of electrons to form electron pairs between atoms. These electron pairs are known as shared pairs or bonding pairs. The stable balance of attractive and repulsive forces between atoms ...

s. This results in a more durable hybrid composite structure that is between 20% and 30% stronger (with only 0.5% CNT contents) than a conventional reinforced plastic. The manufacturing process allows controlling the material properties such as

electrical conductivity Electrical resistivity (also called specific electrical resistance or volume resistivity) is a fundamental property of a material that measures how strongly it resists electric current. A low resistivity indicates a material that readily allow ...

thermal conductivity The thermal conductivity of a material is a measure of its ability to conduct heat. It is commonly denoted by k, \lambda, or \kappa. Heat transfer occurs at a lower rate in materials of low thermal conductivity than in materials of high thermal ...

and

viscosity The viscosity of a fluid is a measure of its resistance to deformation at a given rate. For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of "thickness": for example, syrup has a higher viscosity than water. Viscosity quantifies the inte ...

. Different forms of hybtonite are available for different purposes such as laminating (

glass fiber Glass fiber ( or glass fibre) is a material consisting of numerous extremely fine fibers of glass. Glassmakers throughout history have experimented with glass fibers, but mass manufacture of glass fiber was only made possible with the inventio ...

carbon fiber Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon compo ...

), epoxy paints and glues.

Applications

The first application areas for hybtonite have been in field of wind turbines, marine applications and sports gear. * Montreal Nitro ice hockey stick was the first commercial product using hybtonite. * Cross-country skis and roller skis by Peltonen Sports * Baseball bats by

Karhu Sports Karhu is a Finland, Finnish sports equipment company, focused on running (sport), running. Originally established as "Oy Urheilutarpeita" in 1916, it was renamed "Karhu" (meaning ''bear'' in Finnish language, Finnish) four years later. Karhu's lin ...

* Hunting arrows by Easton * Surfboards by Entropy Surfboards * Eagle Windpower manufactures small size (2 kW to 100 kW) wind turbines using hybtonite as material for the blades. * Large wind turbines manufactured by Evergreen (China), LM Glassfiber (Denmark) and CompoTech (Czech Republic) * Marine paints / AMC nano coating.

Awards

In January 2006, Montreal Hybtonite hockey stick "Nitro" was voted number one Nano product in the world at Nanotech 2006 trade show in Tokyo, Japan. In December 2009, Amroy received

Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan is an American business consulting firm. It offers market research and analysis, growth strategy consulting, and corporate training. It has about 45 offices in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe; the principal office is in San ...

European Technology Innovation Award for its work on hybtonite.

References

{{Reflist Composite materials Nanomaterials Finnish inventions Synthetic resins