Due to potential danger of nanoparticles for human health it is necessary to have control of their motion in air. Mechanical filtering is tricky since the particles are very small and alternative means to guide and collect them, need to be developed. Hence, in this paper clusters of carbon nanotubes are allowed to move through an electrical field generated by two parallel electrodes and it is shown that the tubes are strongly affected by this field and move swiftly towards the electrodes. Once hitting one of them most of the clusters leave towards the other electrode, the procedure is repeated and very few particles are collected. By putting an electrically insulating layer on one plate the particles however get stuck. This implies that the method investigated is an efficient method to collect air-borne carbon nanotubes

Due to potential danger of nanoparticles for human health it is necessary to have control of their motion in air. Mechanical filtering is tricky since the particles are very small and alternative means to guide and collect them, need to be developed. Hence, in this paper clusters of carbon nanotubes are allowed to move through an electrical field generated by two parallel electrodes and it is shown that the tubes are strongly affected by this field and move swiftly towards the electrodes. Once hitting one of them most of the clusters leave towards the other electrode, the procedure is repeated and very few particles are collected. By putting an electrically insulating layer on one plate the particles however get stuck. This implies that the method investigated is an efficient method to collect air-borne carbon nanotubes.