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Introduction Commercialization of a revolutionary new material can take decades, so much patience and persistence is needed.1 When the material is first discovered, there is tremendous hype, which leads to enormous expectations and stimulates plentiful funding for basic research and applications development. This, in turn, leads to initial technology advances that build even more excitement. However, within about a decade, “commercialization anxiety” starts to set in: The quality is not consistent enough. Large-scale production has not been established. High production costs mean that the material is not affordable. Materials suppliers are hesitant to make the large investments required to address quality, scalability, and affordability issues without clear validation of demand for the material. Uncertainties about the intellectual-property landscape and concerns about environmental health and safety add to the perceived risk. As a result, suppliers face even greater difficulties raising the capital needed

to address the materials-supply concerns, further extending the commercialization timeline. Such delays and uncertainty are perfectly normal. History teaches that, for commercialization to succeed, decades can be required for suppliers to become good enough at manufacturing a material and for early adopters to become comfortable enough with using the material in their next-generation products. Carbon fiber has been described as the macroscopic analogue of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs).1 Its widespread adoption, particularly in the form of epoxy composites, is now considered a commercialization success,1 but it took more than two decades for this to happen. It has been two decades since the hype started for SWCNTs, and these materials are just now being commercialized for electronics applications. The good news is that enough progress has been made toward addressing commercialization barriers that it is no longer a question of if commercialization will occur, but

David Arthur, SouthWest NanoTechnologies, Inc.; [email protected] Ricardo Prada Silvy, SouthWest NanoTechnologies, Inc.; [email protected] Philip Wallis, SouthWest NanoTechnologies, Inc.; [email protected] Yongqiang Tan, SouthWest NanoTechnologies, Inc.; [email protected] John-David R. Rocha, School of Chemistry & Materials Science, Rochester Institute of Technology; [email protected] Daniel Resasco, School of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering, University of Oklahoma, and SouthWest NanoTechnologies, Inc.; [email protected] Robert Praino, CHASM Technologies Inc.; [email protected] William Hurley, CHASM Technologies Inc.; [email protected] DOI: 10.1557/mrs.2012.276

© 2012 Materials Research Society

MRS BULLETIN • VOLUME 37 • DECEMBER 2012 • www.mrs.org/bulletin

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CARBON NANOMATERIAL COMMERCIALIZATION: LESSONS FOR GRAPHENE FROM CARBON NANOTUBES

just a question of when. Moreover, although certain electronics applications have been proposed for SWCNTs, which application will be the first is still to be determine