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Camera Flashes Kill Nanotubes
Fnordmonger writes "New Scientist is running a story claiming that flash photography can cause nanotubes to explode. Basically , the carbon absorbs heat, which cannot be dissipated. Instead, the energy is released in an explosion. There is a cool video there of the stuff going off."
Read the story: multi-walled tubules are unaffected. It is my understanding that any use of construction would likely make use of multi-walled ones for strength.
I thought that too, but fortunately, it only effects monowalled nano-tubes. Other varieties don't go boom. Which means they shouldn't buy monowalled ones for the space elevator.
IMarvinTPA
Trusting software vendors is no smarter than trus
I agree, if the space elevator is only 1 atom thick, I'm not riding!
-- MarkusQ
A nano-tube is what you get when you start with a bucky ball, split it in half, add carbon atoms between the hemispheres to build a cylinder with a hemisphere at each end. that would be a Bucky-tube. Taking the hemisphere's off then end will make an open Bucky-tube.
You could also take a one atom thick sheet of carbon atoms (graphite is multiple layers of these sheets) and roll it so that one edge bonds to the other edge. This would give you a tube of arbitrary radius. An open Bucky-tube is a special case.
Further trivia, a bucky ball is a sphere of 60 carbon atoms formed in a shape similar to a socker ball.
-Rusty
You never know...
I'm working on getting the MPEG mirrored too.
Quick: A Carbon Nanotube is a molecule of Carbon in the shape of a tube, a few nanometrea across and possibly infinitely long.
Helpful: Carbon Nanotubes are a varient of buckminsterfullerene. Molecules of which are made of 60 carbon atoms in a sephircal arrangement (like a british (soccar) football). Their exetremely tough, and have great potential for drug delivery and lubricant applications. Carbon Nanotubes split the fullerene molecule in half and extend it with a cylinder of carbon atoms. Another way to think of them is by imagining a rolled up sheet of grphite and capping the ends. Some pictures might make things clearer.
Nano is the next step from micro, current microchips are in the 0.1 micrometre range, this is the same as 100 nanometres. Carbon nanotubes are only a few (ie less than 10) nanometres across.
The article discusses single walled nanotubes, the other varient is multiwalled nanotubes, which are simply many nanotubes wrpped in layers - like a telescopic radio ariel. The potential of carbon nanotubes lies in making lots of them long and all in the same orientation, then we have a rope stronger than diamond (think space elevator strong). Also they might be used in nano scale electronics.
Hope that helps
Alex
Mirror of the MPEG is here: flash.mpeg
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Good place to start if looking into nanotubes--for fun or profit!
What's happening here is the energy absorbed by the nanotubes cannot dissipate fast enough and cause an explosion. In a photoelectric/photovoltaic system all heat is definitely wasted. So your answer is no, because carbon is not particularly useful in a photovoltaic cell and carbon nanotubes certainly wouldn't be, because their internal resistance is *way* too high.
-bugg