Slashdot Mirror
Power Generation With Nanotubes
NubKnacker writes "Business World is carrying an article about how an Indian scientiest at IIT, Bangalore has come up with a new innovative method to produce power by blowing gases over carbon nanotubes. The underlying physics of the idea is quite simple yet no one had thought of it until today."
Unfortunately, nanotubes are still so expensive, velocity sensors are probably all these would be good for - larger power generating variants would be cost prohibitive. I also wonder how robust any velocity sensor made with nanotubes could be; sure, you could probably put one in a steam pipe or a LNG line and get reasonable data (in fact, in any nanotube-friendly chemical you could probably get good data from this sensor), but if you wanted to put one on the outside of a car or an airplane for velocity measurements, I can see nanotubes being easily damaged; either pulled from their moorings/leads in the device or simply snapped - nanotubes may be strong, but that's not going to help if you have a 500mph tiny sharp projectile impact just a few nanotubes. Also, in 'dirty' environments such as those outside of a car or a plane, you would probably start getting buildup of different pollutions at a reasonable rate, causing a need for either a) constant recalibration or b) sensor replacement.