Yarn Spun from Nanotubes

Posted by michael on Friday March 12, 2004 @03:28AM from the spiderman dept.

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."

3 of 152 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Thiopene? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-12 03:32 · Score: 5, Informative

Not this time...

thiophene ... one letter makes a big difference in chemistry

IAAC - I am a chemist
Good nanotube resource site by bcolflesh · 2004-03-12 03:33 · Score: 5, Informative

The Nanotube Site
Re:next generation by Big_Breaker · 2004-03-12 05:30 · Score: 5, Informative

Not true... the elasticity is mostly determined by the vests weaving. Kevlar does not stretch very much - its tensile elongation % is 2.8

Vests need to distribute the energy across the vest and elasticaity doesn't help there.