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Titania Nanotubes for Hydrogen Sensors?

Posted by Hemos on from the strong-and-stiff dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "Everybody is talking about carbon nanotubes these days. But what about titania nanotubes? Penn State researchers think they have a great potential for sensing hydrogen . According to this news release, "titania nanotubes are 1500 times better than the next best material for sensing hydrogen and may be one of the first examples of materials properties changing dramatically when crossing the border between real world sizes and nanoscopic dimensions, according to a Penn State materials scientist." And now, the very good news: titania nanotubes are cheap. So they'll be used in industrial quality control in food plants and as weapons against terrorism. My summary contains some more details."

6 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. cheap? by HBI · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How cheap could these be? I mean titanium itself is not a cheap metal (about $4 a pound apparently), but I imagine making nanotubes out of titanium oxide probably does not consume much titanium. The process has to be a bitch though.

    I don't see anything about cost in the paper either.

    Overexuberance on the author's part?

    --
    HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    1. Re:cheap? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      First of all, the article sounds like a hoax to me.

      But regarding the price of titanium:

      Titanium metal is expensive. Titanium oxide is not.

      Most elements do not like to be turned into metallic form. So although aluminum is the most abundant element in the Earth's crust, nevertheless, iron and steel are much cheaper (by weight) than aluminum.

  2. Terrorism? by roman_mir · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why everything has to be about terrorism?
    1. Throw around a buzzword, like nanotubes.
    2. Mention fighting the terrorism.
    3. Well, we all know what comes at step 3, don't we?

    This is why everything has to be about terrorism.

    Allah Akbar = Profit?

    ---------
    (I used Allah Akbar not because I think it is in itself pro-terrorist, but because it is the most recognized token for the situation, so please.)

    --
    You can't handle the truth.
  3. WTF is Titania? by SiliconEntity · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Titania, it turns out, is Titanium Dioxide, used commonly as a white pigment. Read more about it at the Wikipedia.

  4. Re:What the hell is titania? by luzrek · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Titania is also the name of the well-endowed barmaid in the episode of the Simpsons where Moe has Plastic Surgery.

    Seriously though, this press-release sets off my B.S. sensor. A typical scientific press-release would include some basic stuff, like what Titania Nanotubes are. Additionally, from my understanding of how carbon nanotubes are made, and how they exist, I'm not sure that Titanium could be used to make nanotubes. Neither could Silicon, which is the chemically more similar. Carbon nanotubes can exist because Carbon gets to form 4 and only 4 bonds. The extra electron orbitals (d-orbitals in spectroscophy language) would screw this up.

    Additionally, I don't think that combustion (say in cars, mentioned in the article), results in any free hydrogen, it should be water, carbon dioxide, and unburnt fuel.

    --

    Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.

  5. Roland Piquepaille by DeepDarkSky · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why is Slashdot posting these news release stories that are summarized and submitted by Roland Piquepaille? And for that matter, where are these details on his web site that he purports to have? All I see are direct quotes and linked pictures. This is the second one I see now. Is this a trend? Is this how one can get stories posted here? I'll go and read news release sites like Eureka Alert and quote generously from it, add a couple of picture links, and submit it here.