Rio de Janeiro – The definitive headquarters of the Carbon Materials Nanotechnology Centre (CTNanotubos) will start being built in January 2015 at the Technology Park in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. The facility is strategic for the Brazilian oil and gas industry and should be completed in 2017.
The centre’s coordinator Marcos Pimenta has said the unit will manufacture carbon nanotubes. “We are enhancing carbon nanotubes with certain types of plastic and cement to improve their properties for the extraction process at the pre-salt layer,” he said. CTNanotubos is already operating at a provisional facility, producing 50 grams of carbon nanotubes per day. Once the definitive reactor is completed, output will increase “to several kilograms of nanotubes a day,” Pimenta said.
The centre will conduct nanotechnology research with an emphasis on developing carbon-based nanomaterials. According to Pimenta, the goal is to improve performance of the materials. The work is unprecedented in Brazil.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum