Posted on 10/21/2005 10:47:51 AM PDT by Ben Mugged
Working with a material 10 times lighter than steel - but 250 times stronger - would be a dream come true for any engineer. If this material also had amazing properties that made it highly conductive of heat and electricity, it would start to sound like something out of a science fiction novel. Yet one Florida State University research group, the Florida Advanced Center for Composite Technologies (FAC2T), is working to develop real-world applications for just such a material. ~snip~ Buckypaper is made from carbon nanotubes -- amazingly strong fibers about 1/50,000th the diameter of a human hair that were first developed in the early 1990s. Buckypaper owes its name to Buckminsterfullerene, or Carbon 60 -- a type of carbon molecule whose powerful atomic bonds make it twice as hard as a diamond. If exposed to an electric charge, buckypaper could be used to illuminate computer and television screens. It would be more energy-efficient, lighter, and would allow for a more uniform level of brightness than current cathode ray tube (CRT) and liquid crystal display (LCD) technology.
As one of the most thermally conductive materials known, buckypaper lends itself to the development of heat sinks that would allow computers and other electronic equipment to disperse heat more efficiently than is currently possible. This, in turn, could lead to even greater advances in electronic miniaturization.
Because it has an unusually high current-carrying capacity, a film made from buckypaper could be applied to the exteriors of airplanes. Lightning strikes then would flow around the plane and dissipate without causing damage.
(Excerpt) Read more at spacedaily.com ...
when it's at Home Depot let me know.
I wonder if someone has figured out much distance it can add to your golf drive if attached to the face of a club?
And now that they've gone public with it you will have everyone in the world trying to steal it.
Science is not industry. They publish what they find willingly. Theft of bragging rights would be dealt with harshly.
What I'm wondering is whether this has any armor applications - thinner, lighter body armor, anyone?
Heck with increased yardage - if I hit a ball farther, it's just that much more lost!
Old hat: Reardon metal.
The article seems to have left a little piece out..
One pound of nano-tubing sells for only $700,000.00, no that is not a typo.
And you Yankees thought FSU was just another southern football school. It's the New South, baby. :)
Price gouging!
And... It's Bush's fault.
LOL! Yeah but it sure is nice weather . . . and that fresh air!
A cowboy hat of this would be the ultimate UV blocker and tin foil hat device.
Firefighting suits could be hooked up with a heat bleeding system to let them operate inside infernos.
I wonder how much protection it could give electrical workers.
Ah, Ive heard that one before...."It's the equipment"!
Don't worry. Bobby Bowden is already trying to figure out how to use this stuff on all those free shoes to make his players faster. :)
}:-)4
Probably not, because body armor has to dissipate the energy not just stop a bullet etc.
They are working on the price.
Well, then, GM will certainly want to use some of it in their Hummers.
yes! that should give us a good advantage in the AP study!
I've calculated that the result will be that instead of landing in the woods on the right you will fly the trees and land on route 129 North.
Hmmmmmm . . . you're a little off. From the 9th Tee at Elkins Ranch CC an errant drive to the right would have to clear a 1/2 mile of citrus orchard to land on Hwy. 126 West to Ventura, CA.
Someone's gotta put this buckypaper on a driver . . . I gotta see that shot! ;^)
ping
Or as my old man use to tell me, "it's not the arrows, it's the Indian."
BTW, I thank your son for his service to our country.
"Well, then, GM will certainly want to use some of it in their Hummers."
I'm surprised some enterprising compnay doesn't start coating their vehicle's shift lever or something like that with it just so they can say they're "high tech".
I would love to make a hang glider or paraglider out of this stuff...
Weight per volume is probably pretty low.
You'll probably need three layers of buckypaper for that kind of carry.
At one time aluminium was a precious metal more expensive than gold. Now aluminium is about 1/8700th the price of gold. With that history in mind, I am certain that nanotubes will fall to $100/lb and won't be the least bit surprised if one day I see them trade on the commodities market for $1/lb.
Reardon metal.
good book
dagny got all the good guys...i'm jealous....
The price of nanotubing currentl is around $500.00 a gram!
So what? In five years it will sell for $700 a pound, and in ten years it will sell for 70 cents a pound. High-tech materials always start out very expensive, then plummet in price as mass production methods are developed. Remember, we're talking about carbon atoms here, which are not exactly a rare element. Once we figure out cost-efficient methods of forming carbon atoms into nanotube molecules, the raw material expense will be negligible.
No doubt, and I'll bet the golf balls made with this stuff will be the latest have to have product.
I heard it as "It's a poor workman that blames his tools."
;)
I find it hard to believe that it is twice as hard as diamond.
Twice as tough I might believe due to diamond's clevage planes, but not twice as hard. Equal hardness I might believe.
If it were twice as hard, the only way you could machine the stuff is with itself, making fabrication impractical to say the least..
In fact, the more I re-read the article, the more I think it contains a lot of hype and inaccuracies. Yes, there are huge potentials with the material, but this article strikes me as taking a lot of "poetic license".
And aluminum used to be so expensive that they chose a small pyramid of the stuff to top off the Washington Monument.
The price will come down soon. The scientists invent, and the engineers and manufacturers find ways to make it cheaper and more quickly.
Well, you'd still back it with Kevlar, but it could reduce the thickness of Kevlar required for a given protection level *and/or* allow troops to wear hard armor to deflect shrapnel, knives, etc.
Don't attack me about the price it is what it is.
There is a golf company that lays claims to the fact that they make a shaft that sells for $89.00 retail and has nanotubing incorporated in the design.
How much can it have at that price, at $500.00 a gram?
There must be some inthe gule on the sticker....lol
Until they fix the price this is dream stuff.
He will appreciate that. Right now he and his teammate are hunkered down in the Caribe Internation Hotel in Cancun. We tried everything we could to get him out without success.
The one thing I can be sure of is that they are the two best equipped people down there to survive. They both have been to SERE school and know how to make do.
Now if you could make this stuff cheaply enough, you could make cars out of it. And since your car would be so light, you could have a much lighter engine. You might be able to get a few hundred miles per gallon. Or perhaps the energy requirements would be light enough that you could have a practical electric car.
On a related point, I'm in the minority among conservatives in that I think global warming is potentially a very serious problem. I still oppose Kyoto, however. Why should we suffer so much pain now for a treaty that won't make any difference?
The better approach is to live with a little warming for the next twenty years while new technologies help us build tools that do what we want without the problems of emissions. If Buckypaper cars become viable, we could go way beyond the Kyoto treaty goals with very little pain.
I understand the beachfront hotels in Cancun were built specifically to withstand hurricane force storms. Heck, who would of thought the season would have gone to Wilma?
Placemarker
"if I hit a ball farther, it's just that much more lost!"
LOL! Potential tagline
These days, being Indian is no guarantee that I shoot arrows well. Fortunately there are other projectile devices that I am very good at using.
LOL! You have a sharp sense of humor . . . and probably an equal aim with your guns.
BTW, thank you for your service to our country.
Thank you.
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