 Solution

Use floating-catalyst chemical vapor deposition to form a continuous suspended network. Introduce a carbon feed together with a volatile catalyst precursor into a hot gas-flow reactor. Catalyst nanoparticles nucleate in the gas stream; tubes grow while moving through the reaction zone and assemble into an interconnected aerogel.

Withdraw that network continuously, collect it on a rotating spindle, and consolidate or twist it into a fiber. Long tubes, suitable number density and adequate overlap allow the network to transmit the drawing force without breaking into isolated clumps. The take-up rate must be matched to network production; collection is not simply a geometrically scaled version of a substrate carpet.

The catalyst and tubes form in the flowing gas, and the product is drawn directly from a growing aerogel. This differs both from a supported carpet and from later spinning of a separately prepared nanotube dispersion. The original demonstration combined CVD synthesis with continuous product withdrawal from the furnace.^[ref]