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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."
this could nicely lead to next generation of armor especially bullet proof vests.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
That brings up an important point: Nanotubes can be expected to be carcinogenic.
They're essentially really sharp needles that could poke through anything they touch. Including the nucleus of cells in the body.
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Yea, but cold fusion is considered impossible. A space elevator is just prohibatively expensive and we don't have the technology yet. However, both those things will change eventually.
Do you know how they slice potatoes for French fries now? High pressure water. One word: foamy.
;)
They optimize them on a high-speed conveyer belt that has rows of optical sensors with hydraulically fired knifes. As the fry passes under the sensor it optimizes the fry length and fires a hydraulic piston with a rubber hinge attached to a curved blade, the speed that the piston fires at flexes the rubber hinge so that as it springs back it's speed matches belt. This prevents the fries from being fired off the belt by the knifes. It also accounts for starch build up on the system. All pistons are hot swappable. One of these machines can do all the fries for a region of the country. This is an example of precision motion control software mated to good mechanical engineering.
I think you stole the idea from Frank Herbert's Shiga wire or Arthur C. Clarck's Diamond fiber.
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
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