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Yarn Spun from Nanotubes
jabberjaw writes "Nature is reporting that Professor Alan H Windle has spun nanotube yarn by twisting nanotubes onto spinning rods as they come out of the furnace from which they are made. Professor Windle's team used ethanol (carbon source) with ferrocene (catalyst) and thiopene (for thread assembly) to create the structure. To create the tubes a mix of the above chemicals is inserted into a furnace in a jet of hydrogen gas. However, do not get your hopes up yet, the press release also indicates that the yarn has a strength comparable to that of most modern textiles but the groups does state that there is room for improvement. Yes, for those of you wondering, there is mention of a space elevator."
Granny can now knit me that virtually invulnerable monitor cozy I've always wanted!
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
Last Monday I caught a sweater on something at work. I remember plain as day muttering "Damn wool and its inherent weaknesses! My fashion woes would be eliminated if someone would come up with a way to feed a mixture of ethanol and catalytic ferrocene with a splash of thiopene into a hydrogen gas furnace..."
What's David Boies' phone number?
Trolling is a art,
.. the one that apparently was so tight it nearly choked Jeri Ryan on set. The Nanotubes, cap'n.. they cannae hold!
this could nicely lead to next generation of armor especially bullet proof vests.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
Not this time...
... one letter makes a big difference in chemistry
thiophene
IAAC - I am a chemist
There were these carbon molecules in a Erlinmeyer flask. They wanted to see the world in a way no other carbon molecules had before. So they held hands and created a buckeyball....
Well, maybe not an interesting yarn for YOU, Carbon based Ugly bag of mostly-water, but the little carbonettes just EAT these stories up!
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
If you thought politicians were bad, now even NANOTUBES are spinning yarn.
The Nanotube Site
I can only imagine that this would make one of the most expensive sweaters ever. What are the insulating properties of nanotubes? We may not have the tensile strength available to us at a macro level, but if they have good insulation properties, this yarn may be somewhat commercially viable in certain niche applications as-is. Y'think? Then again, are they flammable? That might be bad.
-1, "1337" speak
Just think of the fishing line you could have. It could cut your boat in half.
Getting a space elevator mentioned in Nature is huge, whether or not it is a viable project. It will help give it the exposure it needs to get debated on whether it is a viable project by people that could actually help get it off the ground.
-Sean
An interesting point is that you can see that this should be possible by using Schrodinger's equation directly which isn't usually possible. Thus you could simulate it too.
So next time someone snaps my picture., my sweater will explode.
Very amusing...
I wonder if clothing made from this stuff would be itchy. Like wool.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
Its even less useful then normal yarn at this point. None of the strength and non of the conductivity.
Just curious... given a rope so strong, how would one untie or cut it if it is entangled.
Quite scary to be tied by such a rope.
Hey, that's my password you are typing
poor hulk hogan who will no longer be able to tear his shirt off.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
But it's not clear whether the method will ever produce fibres as strong as the individual nanotubes that comprise them: to do that, each nanotube would need to be as long as the entire fibre.
Nanotube is just another buzzword. Nothing special has been invented yet. The article says these are no stronger than regular textile fibers (like nylon, I assume).
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
It makes me wonder if the "twisting" of the nanotubes puts a shear stress on them where they are potentially weaker than a single fiber. The twisting would make it much more flexible though.
Meh... A good step forward, but what I really want to hear is that fullerene clothing is being made. That would be pretty high on the holy-crap-this-is-cool scale. For any who don't get this, read through the archives on schlockmercenary.com
'Professor Windle and his Nano-Spindle' - I can see the merchandising possibilities stretch for miles..
I'm perceiving that almost anything can be made of nanotubes, what's next ? nanotubes underwear ?
Is it absolutely necessary to have a sig. ?
That makes a change from politicians, used car dealers and IBM salesmen...
Stick Men
i'm a knitter, a very low-maintenance knitter. screw wool! i want a nanotube cashmerino blend with eyelashes that glow in the dark that can be washed with all-temperature cheer and dried in the dryer. i'd make more ponchos and wrist warmers and leg warmers than you could stand! nanotube science, take me away!
Well, they say although it's cheaper than kevlar, it's one tenth as strong. A cop might be up for wearing ten nanoyarn sweaters though if they're comfy enough.
Farnsworth: Don't worry, the fat pig will do fine thanks to this flabbo-dynamic spandex bodysuit I've designed. It redistributes his weight, shifting his centre of gravity closer to his knees. Hermes: Ooh that's snug! *creak* Oh. Those haven't descended in years.
This could well be interesting stuff even if it is no
stronger than current polymers. The advantage may well
arise from its ability to retain its strength
at high temperatures which current threads do not.
UV resistance would be another big win.
Intresting with a lot of work on the spinneret this may improve rapidly. Also we have a lot of experience in this area so refining the process is not new tech. Sort of like with inkjet printers or spiders the magic is in the nozzle. I think using electrostatic nozzles may be intresting
Mmmmm... yams.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
So we have an economically-viable process using materials we can multiple-source... this looks like a big step in the right direction. The only way is Up, right?
Grandmothers delight as they learn that they can now make a sweater that is immune to all those mysterious things that keep plaguing all the other sweaters previously given to their grandchildren.
So next time someone snaps my picture., my sweater will explode.
Once again, a new technology's most obvious application is in pornography.
The enemies of Democracy are
Given the toughness and other properties of carbon nanotubes, does the dust tend to be like graphite, and reasonably safe as an inhalation hazard (being heavy and all), or has any kind of toxicology testing been done with them? I'd hate to see carbon nanotube fragments becoming the next asbestos.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
These guys are using nanotubes to create a quantum computer.
Making clothes out of this 'yarn' may not be such a good idea... wear it out to picture day and you may be going home burned and naked!
Blockwars: free, multiplayer, head-to-head Tetris like game
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
What amazes me is that we never seem to learn. As a scientist, I see this scenerio played out over and over. Someone discovers something new and kinda cool. Then, in the ferver of excitement that follows, the sun, moon and stars are promised. Much activity occurs. Some progress is made. Real work gets done. But, at the end of the day, we have no sun, moon, and stars.
Carbon nanotubes are an interesting discovery, but making them in adundance is non-trivial. Forming them into useful macro structures is also not well understood, to put it mildly. I hate to break it to you, but there will be no space elevator, at least any time soon.
This irrational exuberance of science tends to hurt more than help. Becuase when someone promises the world and then doesn't deliver. It hurts the entire discipline in the way of funding cuts by politicians who feel burned for beleiving the hype. Just some perspective.
My two cents,
-Iowa
"He who laughs last, didn't get the joke."-Cap
Before everyone gets the idea of dressing up Jerry Ryan in ultra tight nonotube fabrics I would like to point out that this material is not properly investigated regarding toxicity. Even a brief look on the net will show that it is quite possible it has similar properties as asbestos fibres, and that is not nice.
Anybody know what a mass of nanotubes looks like? And buckeyballs? Soot, which is black, contains lots of buckeyballs I think. And diamonds are colorless. So how would the nanotube structure affect the color?
I can't seem to find it now, but Jordin Kare (of LLNL) had a nice presentation showing that a space elevator isn't really any cheaper than a RLV - even under when the space elevator assumes not-yet-existent materials like carbon nanotube composites with tensile strength approaching that of the raw fiber and the RLV is built only using existing technology.
Many proponents of certain technologies forget to take into account that hypothetical advancements required for their favorite technology will also benefit competing technologies. For example - carbon nanotube composites will make superb structural material for a high fuel fraction RLV, and it doesn't take tens of thousands of kilometers of the stuff.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Windle's team used ethanol (carbon source) with ferrocene (catalyst) and thiopene (for thread assembly)
Whenever I start my experiments with ethanol, they end in the hospital...
Now, if they could make shiny tubes, your granny could knie you a mithril mail shirt.
You don't need a lab to make mud.
So when does he patent the 'Windle Spindle'?
"It's cheap and the ethanol feedstock can be made from renewable resources."
-- Alan Windle University of Cambridge
Sindri Traustason.
So this filament is superstrong and can cut thru stuff? Guess all we need is a way to attach a mooring point and we can build that Ringworld thing.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Carbon nanotubes are just carbon. Carbon is not toxic.
Asbestos is not toxic either. Toxins work by chemical poisoning. Asbestos works its harm via mechanical damage on a microscopic scale.
Yarn? I thought it said yam. Now a yam spun from nanotubes..that would be cool.
In Soviet Russia, Nigel makes plans for you!
The Nanotubes, cap'n.. they cannae hold!
And have her busting out of her clothing? You say that like it's a bad thing.
This won't create strong materials. He's not splicing carbon nanotubes together end to end, which has a chance of preserving the strength. He's just taking short nanotubes, basically lint, and twisting them together. That's orders of magnitude weaker, and far easier.
They've managed to stick some spider genes into a goat, and harvest "spider silk" (they call it BioSteel) out of the goat's milk. It's not quite as good as real spider silk, and goats don't have a spinnerette, so it takes some processing to get proper silk out of this, but spiders are a little too uncooperative to farm and milk, so the goats will have to do.
Until we find some cheap, effective way to work with nanotubes, this BioSteel is probably the better solution. Plus, it sounds like this nanotube thread isn't as strong as BioSteel anyways.
-"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." -EH
...engineered cat they are going to have to create to be able to play with that ball of "yarn".
"What the hell is an aluminum falcon?"
For some reason reading that gave me the image of Elrond saying something about "casting it back into the fires from whence it came..."
But seriously, a lot of people worry about "PM2.5" (particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter) potentially being the major component of air pollution leading to chronic (as versus acute) death - there is still controversy in the area though. Look up "Six Cities Study" and the HEI reanalysis
It is true that nanotubes and buckyballs are found in ordinary soot: however, at very low concentrations. It is also true that they are likely inert. This doesn't mean that they can't cause lung damage - small sharp rods that get sucked into your alveoli could do nasty things. One study shows oddly conflicting results: high acute death with no long term impact, because if the nanotubes don't kill the rat fast, then they clump up and become big enough for the lungs to handle them like large-size soot particles.
The summary: what a good scientist always recommends - more research needed! =)
-Marcus
p.s. My personal belief is that I think nanotubes will turn out to be fine - however, I would like them to be thoroughly examined before becoming available in products for mass consumption.
Beaches should be banned before nanotube yarn. Marine aerosol (i.e. sea spray) contains plenty of nanoparticles. Why not impose a full moratorium on surfing, sandcastles, and beach volleyball until the full health effects of marine aerosol nanoparticles on the human body is understood?
One question about nanomaterials and nanocoatings is how likely are you to inhale substantial quantities of them in the first place. You create nanoparticles when you toast a piece of bread. You'll probably inhale less nanoparticles from your space elevator or Eddie Bauer Nano-Care khakis than you do from your breakfast toast. More seriously, I'd worry about nanoparticles from normal car exhaust before I'd worry about dust from nanoyarn.
"Thoroughly examined" in practice too often means worrying idefinitely about insubstantial risks. I want the benefits of nanotech in my lifetime. I don't want it to get bogged down forever by politically motivated scaremongering like oelstra, electronic pasteurization, and biotech have.
"Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries!"
Your nanoyarn vest won't do you any good once nanotube munitions are available. In the nearer future, Liquidmetal should make a good armor.
"Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries!"
I really wanted to wear my new nanotube sweater to the flash rave.
How about branching networks of nanotubes? Has anyone made branching nanotubes? Tiny patches of carbon lace that intersect multiple other patches might be strong on a macro scale.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -- HST
Now I'm trying to figure out why I couldn't find it in a few minutes of googling...
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
intermolecular forces can't handle the forces. According to Niven's RW introduction, you would need the strong nuclear force. A strangelet ring might be a candidate, since it would be one giant particle, but strangelet's seem kind of dangerous.