Carbon nanotubes: Advantages and Disadvantages

Carbon nanotubes are a great piece of technology, and new uses for them are being found every day. However they do have their draw backs.

Advantages

• Extremely small and lightweight, making them excellent replacements for metallic wires
• Resources required to produce them are plentiful, and many can be made with only a small amount of material
• Are resistant to temperature changes, meaning they function almost just as well in extreme cold as they do in extreme heat
• Have been in the R&D phase for a long time now, meaning most of the kinks have been worked out
• As a new technology, investors have been piling into these R&D companies, which will boost the economy

Disadvantages

• Despite all the research, scientists still don't understand exactly how they work
• Extremely small, so are difficult to work with
• Currently, the process is relatively expensive to produce the nanotubes
• Would be expensive to implement this new technology in and replace the older technology in all the places that we could
• At the rate our technology has been becoming obsolete, it may be a gamble to bet on this technology