Pyrolytic Carbon - Applications

Applications

• It is used nonreinforced for missile nose cones, and ablative (boiloff-cooled) rocket motors.
• In fiber form, it is used to reinforce plastics and metals (see Carbon fiber and Graphite-reinforced plastic).
• Pebble bed nuclear reactors use a coating of pyrolytic carbon as a neutron moderator for the individual pebbles.
• Used to coat graphite cuvettes (tubes) in graphite furnace atomic absorption furnaces to decrease heat stress, thus increasing cuvette lifetimes.
• Pyrolytic carbon is used for several applications in electronic thermal management: thermal interface material, heat spreaders (sheets) and heat sinks (fins)
• It is used to fabricate grid structures in some high power vacuum tubes.
• It is used as a monochromator for neutron and x-ray scattering studies.
• Prosthetic heart valves (Medtronic-Hall)
• Radial Head Prosthesis
• It is also used in Automotive industries where a desired amount of friction is required between two components
• Highly Ordered Pyrolytic Graphite (HOPG) is used as the dispersive element in HOPG spectrometers which are used for X-ray spectrometry.