Patent ID: 8709372

Claim:
A method for spinning a fiber of carbon nanotubes, comprising: drawing carbon nanotubes away from a substantially aligned, supported array of carbon nanotubes to form a ribbon, the array of carbon nanotubes having an average carbon nanotube height of about 0.3 mm or about 0.5 mm, the carbon nanotubes having an average diameter of about 7 nm and a majority of the carbon nanotubes being double-walled carbon nanotubes, wetting the ribbon of carbon nanotubes with a liquid polymer present at from about 0.1% to about 2% to form a wetted ribbon of carbon nanotubes, spinning a fiber from said wetted ribbon of carbon nanotubes, wherein spinning comprises twisting wetted carbon nanotubes of the wetted ribbon around each other as carbon nanotubes are drawn away from said substantially aligned, supported array of carbon nanotubes, the fiber having an tensile strength greater by at least about 5% as compared to a fiber prepared by immersing a supported array of carbon nanotubes in the liquid comprising a polymer and spinning the carbon nanotubes into a fiber under comparable conditions, and the fiber having a tensile strength of greater than 0.90 GPa.