Caution flag raised on buckyballs; harm to the environment possible

Houston Chronicle ^ | June 23, 2005 | Eric Berger eric.berger@chron.com

[Prophet in the wilderness]

" the legislation would be too costly for businesses and would force manufacturers to move operations and jobs overseas. " ......

That there is their driving force and motive behind this legislation, not their so called " PROTECTION of the ENVIROMENT " but, to make America weak, to make America a 3 rd rate world power, that my friends ? is their TRUE motive.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bump!

[Vinnie_Vidi_Vici]

The actual name of these compounds is "Buckminsterfullerenes" or "fullerenes" for short. Named after the inventor of the geodesic domes that have the same shape as the molecule.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

***Scientists have calculated the theoretical strength of carbon nanotubes to be as large as 300 gigapascals, nearly 100 times greater than steel and 15 times greater than graphite whiskers.***

See LINK at Post #4.

[auntyfemenist]

A little ot, but in my limited experience with carbon fiber items, mostly in the optical goods industry, this stuff doesn't seem to react well to temperature changes and peels apart in weird layers with wear. It is strong, but doesn't hold up in some forms. Maybe there are forms applications I am not familiar with?

[lupie]

bump for later read

[Red Badger]

Build buildings of Carbon fiber? It does burn...............

[Red Badger]

If you put a buckey ball in a nanotube do you have a nanogun?........

[narby]

It's just carbon. Big deal.

It looks like government is literally researching new ways they can regulate us.

Government sucks.

[dc-zoo]

I love the smell of buckyballs in the morning. Technology rocks!

[LIConFem]

"...but we should be making buildings and bridges out of carbonfiber and not out of steel."

We probably will, at some point, but it's still too expensive.

[caver]

"A Mitsubishi Corp. subsidiary in Japan already can make 40 tons of buckyballs a year and has plans to expand its capacity to 1,500 tons annually within a few years."

So what could we do with 40 tons of buckyballs if we had them? It still doesn't sound like they are ready to do anything with them.

[MortMan]

Last month, in front of a Chicago Eddie Bauer store, which markets paints that include nanomaterials to prevent staining, a group called THONG protested the company's use of nanofibers

Thank goodness they didn't DANTHE! ;-P

[Cincinatus' Wife]

[Cincinatus' Wife]

When Nanopants Attack ***.........Eddie Bauer protest highlights a growing movement aimed at probing the potential health risks of nanotechnology, which is finding its way into commercial products despite scant research into its long-term effects. While still nascent, the backlash recalls other environmental challenges to new technologies, notably genetically modified foods, which have spawned grass-roots opposition movements amid fierce denials from companies that their products are harmful.

Nanotechnology broadly refers to engineering at microscopic scales. By manipulating materials at the molecular level, scientists can enhance them with new properties that go beyond those available in ordinary substances.

Examples of nanomaterials already on the market include nanoscale titanium dioxide used in some cosmetics and sunscreens, nanoscale silica being used as dental fillers, and nanowhiskers used in stain-resistant fabrics like Eddie Bauer's nanopants. Plus, nanoclays and coatings are being used in a range of products from tennis balls to bikes to cars to improve bounce, strengthen high-impact parts or render material scratch-proof. Nanotechnology could one day give rise to microscopic machines, some theorize. ...***

[Willie Green]

but we should be making buildings and bridges out of carbonfiber and not out of steel.

Buildings and bridges are intricate structures, and engineering selection of appropriate construction materials is too complex to make such a generalized, mutually exclusive statement. I certainly think that the advanced properties of carbon fiber will have some application in building and bridge construction. However, there will be myriad situations where carbon fiber's properties will be undesirable compared to steel.

It is not a situation where steel is inherently "good" or carbon fiber is "bad" (or vice-versa). It's just that properties of materials can't be summarized by a meaningless adjective like "strength". The first thing an engineer is going to ask is "what kind of strength?" Tensile? Shear? Compression? Torsion? Impact resistance? etc. etc. etc.

[tahotdog]

Aluminum was more expensive than gold early on.

[Mike Darancette]

The new results compound concerns raised by earlier studies that found buckyballs can cause brain damage in bass and harm human cells.

I thought that buckyballs occurred in nature.