Slashdot Mirror
Diamonds Are A Space Station's Best Friend
strredwolf writes: "Research is being done to replace standard solar cell pannels commonly used in satelites with one's made with diamonds. Supposedly, they would be more durable to conditions in space, as well as generate more power at the same cost. Same cost? The kicker is that they're not using gem-quality diamonds. Article on Beyond 2000, which amazingly is still around." Note: this is still a work in progress, not a finished technology, but if it pans out, this offers several benefits over traditional solar cells.
According to this article, scientists can make diamonds from methane. I can see it now... farmers recycling cow farts to make jewelery.
I have seen the future and it's made of crystallized flatulence.
If you think the problem of people ripping out cables for the salvage value of the copper, just wait until this technology hits. Soon we will have space-bound pick-up trucks driving off with the solar panels on the International Space Station. A sorry mess we will be in then!
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
A lot depends on how you interpret those last two words.
Our culture is supposedly dominated in areas like science by people who say that they believe in evolution. The next obvious step would be space (although the previous atomic age doesn't seem to have got very far in that direction). Without a program like this, Dr Malthus wins, albeit later than he figured, and everyone else loses (most of us die without any help from a rapacious industry, militant eco-nuts, Chernobyl or the Inquisition). Yet funding for space-oriented development is slowly, steadily drying up.
Why?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Short-term, yes. Lunar/asteroid-mined materials would be a different matter - since lofting them is much easier - and if you were going the powersat/habitat route, they could be arranged to emerge almost as a by-broduct of other refining (the slag/vapour from metals-refining would be relatively high-carbon).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
They carefully control the quantity and quality of diamonds released to the public so that the level of supply and demand remains constant.
I may be wrong, but I think they strictly regulate the number of gem quality diamonds on the market. I don't think they care a bit about black/brown industrial grade diamonds. Those are used every day in stuff like sanders, saw blades, etc.
I read an article years ago about synthetic gem production, and wish I could remember what it said about the cost. But that's also key, there's probably a difference between "gem" and plain ole "diamond".
GaAs has the density of steel. I think diamond is about twice that (I don't quite remember).
No, diamond is just 3.5 or so. Steel is about 8. Silicon is about 2.3.
I agree with most points, except that though in space you don't need much backing, you still need to reinforce them for launch. Which entails about 4-6gs for a shuttle, and lots of vibration.
What you'd actually do if you had a photovoltaic film (on metal or plastic) is roll it up for transport, and unfurl it in space. You can keep it thin that way.
The limiting factor will be the required thickness of the electrode films (the two metal films sandwiching the diamond film). These will have large sheet currents going through them, and so will have to be thick. The diamond film can be as thin as desired, down to a few light wavelengths, I think (a few microns).
The front sheet cannot be thick -- light has to pass through it!
What you do is you use a thin film with a mesh of thicker wires over it to carry the bulk of the current. Take a look at a conventional solar cell, and you'll see a dentritic wire pattern on it that does this.
The _average_ thickness has to be enough to carry the required sheet current, even if the thickness on most of the surface is small.
The prime cost of putting things into space is not material, but the rockets you build to put them up there. Diamonds are much more dense than silicon or GaAs (the solar cell of choice in space nowadas, so the article is kinda wrong), so they will be correspondingly more massive.
You're talking about a film a few tens or hundreds of microns thick on a sheet of metal.
The density of the diamond film is moot point.
Even if you deposit both a metal film and a diamond film on top of a lighter substrate (like mylar or another plastic), 1) the metal film will still outweigh the diamond film - it has to be thicker, because it's carrying current sideways instead of axially, and 2) the weight of the plastic backing will be much more than the weight of either of the films, because you'd only be using a backing if you could make the films very thin (otherwise you'd just use the thicker metal layer as the backing - this is a space environment, it doesn't have to be very strong).
Wrong... didn't you read the article? The system doesn't work like silicon. The diamond film converts HEAT to electricity. (Simular to piezo-electric crystals)
So, you're going to have a big black sheet of metal heated up really hot.
Pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
Yeah, I used to watch that show all the time as well. When they went to doing "The Next Step" later in the 90's, the co-creator of the show went on to host CNET Central, which went off the air a couple years ago. He's still doing News.com broadcasts on CNBC, but as far as I know, Beyond2000 and Next Step went off the air completely some time ago. I was shocked to see that they still have a website up.
-Julius X
-Julius X
remove "-whatkindofspamdoyoutakemefor-" from email to send
The show is apparently been airing continuously in Australia since 1985, and is in its 15th season (or "series" as everyone there calls it). The website has information about it here:
http://www.beyond2000.com/show/index.html
-Julius X
-Julius X
remove "-whatkindofspamdoyoutakemefor-" from email to send
A small diamond bit is used as a seed for the crystal, and methane gas (at the appropriate temp and pressure) is passed over it. The carbon sticks to the growing diamond, and the hydrogen continues on its way. In theory, this can create arbitrarily large diamonds.
I hope industrial diamonds get more popular (not as jewelry) because they really are lovely material to work with. As has been mentioned, they conduct heat quite well, are quite strong for their weight, resist abrasion, etc. There's a good reason why lots of sci-fi uses diamond as a building material...
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
Yeah that show was awesome, and so was the little Aussie hottie... I guess there weren't enough shark chases or car attacks for Discovery's audiences.
Wow, does any one else remember this show from the Discovery channel? I used to watch this religiously through middle and into high school, when it was taken off the air. (or at least I thought since the Discovery channel dropped it) Does anyone know if it is still aired in the US? Their site didn't seem to offer that kind of information oddly, but they did say it is aired "around the world".
:)
I wonder if "The Next Step" is still on as well. Any of you other tech geeks out there remember those days?
http://kered.org
Civil wars can also cause De Beers big headaches - there is a river valley in Africa where many of the riverbeds have gemstones in such quantiity you can shovel them up. The area that falls within South African territory is strictly policed to stop the bottom falling out of the diamond market, but during a recent conflict in Angola, De Beers was having to buy up supply from diamond poachers to keep them off the market.
Apparently inflation in the local area was like the 1849 gold rush in the USA, with a can of coke going for over $100 cash in US currency.
De Beers has huge warehouses with years of supply stockpiled - they limit the sale of gemstones to 2 tons (IIRC = 10m carats) a year.
OK, since they don't teach this in school any more, I'll try to explain.
One's is a contraction of "one is," or the possessive of "one."
Ones is the plural of one.
- Have a picture
hrm.
What efficency is that? Some back of the napkin calculations: earth orbit is r = 149,597,890,000 ~ 1.49 E11 meters from the sun (according to www.space.com). So the total surface area of that dyson-sphere is 4*pi*r*r ~ 2.23795 E22 m2.
A search for "power output of the sun" gives it as ~ 4 E 26 Watts, so we get an energy flux of ~ 1.7 E4 W/m2 = 17 KW/m2.
So I would be VERY suprised if they manage to get 100KW / m2.
Exactly. I understand that synthetic diamonds are a dime a dozen, because they have an incredible demand in the tool-making industry for being the hardest substance known.
(Before I get trolls, let me note that don't actually make tools out of diamonds, rather they cover the abrasive or sharp ends of said tools with synthetic diamond sand...)
Yeah, the "L" stamped on the back is a dead giveaway.
You can still get synthetic star sapphires. Wholesale, even. See SyntheticGems.org, a Thai manufacturer. You can even get sapphire bar stock. Linde Chemical did make a particularly nice star sapphire, though.
The price of gemstone diamonds is propped up by the increasingly frantic efforts of the De Beers Consolidated Selling Organization Ltd, the people behind the "A Diamond is Forever" promotion. But that's for gemstones. Most industrial diamond is synthetic.
DeBeers is currently fighting attempts by synthetic diamond manufacturers to move into gemstones. They fear a repeat of the star sapphire debacle. Around 1970, Linde Chemical started manufacturing and promoting synthetic star sapphires, using the name The Linde Star. They glutted the market and the price of sapphires went way down. Then Linde exited the business, and others took the price even lower.
For those who missed it, here's a very brief overview of the CSO: http://www.infonorth.org/diamonds/html/diamond_mar keting.html thanks to Google. Apparent mirror site at http://www.gov.nt.ca/RWED/diamond/project7.htm
de beers
Well, they use to call the show "Towards 2000" in the 80s. Then switched to B2K in the 90s. But glad to hear they are still around because I loved the show when I was a kid! People should watch this more so they won't go buy stuff from places like this
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
GaAs has the density of steel. I think diamond is about twice that (I don't quite remember).
I agree with most points, except that though in space you don't need much backing, you still need to reinforce them for launch. Which entails about 4-6gs for a shuttle, and lots of vibration.
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
The prime cost of putting things into space is not material, but the rockets you build to put them up there. Diamonds are much more dense than silicon or GaAs (the solar cell of choice in space nowadas, so the article is kinda wrong), so they will be correspondingly more massive.
Sure diamonds may have higher efficiency, but what they should also worry about is Watts/mass, not just efficiency. As long as W/m of GaAs is higher, they should think hard before switching.
Still, ranting over, it's a real cool technology. Imagine, building a zillion nano-vacuum tubes!
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
Really excellent expose' on the DeBeers cartel and how they create an artificaial scarcity of diamonds worldwide to keep prices from falling below that of aluminum.
---
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
The worldwide diamond market is cornered by ONE COMPANY. (Someone find the name for me, thanks.)
They carefully control the quantity and quality of diamonds released to the public so that the level of supply and demand remains constant.
There are so many diamonds available that if even a fraction of them were released the value of diamonds would fall to nothing.
If it were not for this fact, I would assume that synthetic diamonds would be far more expensive than real ones.
But I feel synthetic gems would be required for manufacturing since you would have a billion identical.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_c
Supposedly, they would be more durable to conditions in space, as well as generate more power at the same cost. Same cost? The kicker is that they're not using gem-quality diamonds.
Diamonds are one of the most plentiful resources on the planet. The only reason why they are worth so much is that a certain company restricts the supply of the certain gem quality diamonds(*KOFF* DeBeers *KOFF*). But imagine that engagement ring...
"Yeah I got my fiancee a two karat diamond ring..."
"Oh yeah, well my fiancee's ring is only a 1.5 karat, but doubles as a backup battery for a pda..."
Rehab is for quitters...
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
Yeah, we get it here. Most of the sexual jokes are subtle enough that I guess the censors don't get it. We are one season behind the rest of the world I think though.
Like you notice on Water in the garden the flowers looked like penises? :)
-
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Do you want smaller government?
Vote for midgets?
hehe That's pretty good.
-
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Sanford and Son Jewelers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~ the real world is much simpler ~~
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
This doesn't compare to conventional solar cells at all. The article says 10Watts per cemtimeter! Holy cow. Like the above post says, that's 100Kw a meter. Times a million for a kilometer. . . yikes. A hundred Gigawatts per kilometer? That's not your father's solar panel. That's the capacity of a couple or three big steam turbines --is it not?
And the article says they think they can manufacture this at a dollar a centimeter? Whoa! Ten thousand dollars a meter times a million . . . hmm. Ten billion dollars just for materials eh? Well, it's still far from competitive with terrestrial power at that price point. If they could get closer to ten cents a centimeter though. . . You've got to keep in mind, California is talking about doubling retail electricity rates. A dollar a centimeter aint gonna get it, but they're within a single magnitude range assuming they can keep the launch costs under control too. Big if.
Nonethless, that's about the price range for a 30 gigawatt coal plant right? Three hundred million US? Ci, no? I haven't bought one in such a long time.
If you had read the article you would have seen that they were talking about using synthetic diamonds:
Instead it uses thin films made up of millions of microscopic diamond crystals. Polycrystalline diamond films can be made artificially from methane, through a process called chemical vapour deposition.
Actually, if you go to a gem show you will find Linde Star Sapphires selling for quite high prices. Seems Linde (now a division of Union Carbide, oops, a division of a division of Dow) had one chemist who actually knew the secret of making the blasted things. When he died, the secret of the Linde star died with him. Linde Division no longer makes star sapphires, and the distinctive artificial Linde Stars are as valuable in their own right as high-quality natural stones.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Of course, I didn't say you couldn't.
Linde Chemical did make a particularly nice star sapphire, though.
And you can't get them any more. Linde stars are no longer available, except as old stock. And connoisseurs can spot them a mile away. Because they are no longer made Linde stars are now as valuable as similar quality natural stones.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
I did read the article. If it made sense to you, it must be because you know enough about the subject to fill in the omissions without thinking about them. It compared the cost of the diamond thermionic cells to semiconductor solar cells, which work on direct, unconcentrated sunlight. It did not mention the cost of mirrors to concentrate the sunlight. It would definitely have left anyone without appreciable technical knowledge of solar energy with the impression that a 1 meter square array would give 100KW power -- when actually a 1 m^2 mirror would be needed to feed a few cm^2 of thermionics, giving well under 1 KW power.
The article claims this will get 10W/cm^2. Sunlight in earth orbit gives a power level of 1600 W/m^2 = 0.16W/cm^2.
Possibly the plan is to use mirrors or plastic Fresnel lenses to focus the light onto small spots of diamond thermionic emitters. This would help explain how they are going to get the high temperatures needed for thermionic emission -- but the article doesn't say. Lousy reporting.
Notice the Dutch name--that's because they are Boers (Dutch colonialists in South Africa). Yes, this is the very same DeBeers that advertises on TV.
--
324006
You are so completely wrong. CVD diamond technology is here and ready to roll. True there are some engineering hurdles but the technology is sound. You can put a coating of diamond on almost anything today. The diamond will have a better Index of Refraction then SiO2 coatings. It will also be strong enough to withstand 1000's of micro meteorites smashing into it constantly. This will lead to thinner panels. Less weight to lift up there. Less maintanence. I could go on but I think i proved my point.