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Futuristic 'Smart' Yarns from Carbon Nanotubes
neutron_p writes "Scientists at The UTD NanoTech Institute achieved a major technological breakthrough by spinning multi-walled carbon nanotube yarns that are strong, tough and extremely flexible, and are both electrically and thermally conducting. Among other things, the futuristic yarns could result in 'smart' clothing that stores electricity, provides ballistic protection and adjusts temperature and porosity to provide greater comfort. The breakthrough, made possible by, in effect, downsizing ancient technology used for wool and cotton spinning to the nanoscale, resulted from an unusual collaboration involving nanotechnologists and experts in wool spinning."
Does this mean that grandma can now knit me a bullet proof vest?
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
and now they come out with this. I knew I should have waited.
Sweet informative mod.
Am I the only one who thought of Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke when reading this?
For those that don't know, Foutains of Paradise is where ACC first coined the idea of building an elevator into space which he later used in 3001: A Final Odyssey (The 3rd sequal to 2001: A Space Odyssey). To build the elevator a super-strength carbon string was bundled into three bundles and then attached to a giant mass in space to keep the tethers taught. At least if memory serves me correctly that's how it was done. If you're an ACC fan and haven't read Fountains of Paradise, I recommend it.
:wq
Screw smart clothes... Hopefully this stuff can be made into next generation pressurised (200-300 atm) rocket fuel tanks. No turbopumps, reliable pressure fed engines without weight penalty in bulky tanks and cheap RLV is one important step closer to reality.
I would not get my hopes up for getting a carbon nanotube sweater for Christmas this year or next year or the year after that... In the foreseeable future these nanotube yarns would be used to replace metal wires in applications where increased flexibility and pliability are required they could also be used for such things as capacitors or batteries. The authors of the article (Mei Zhang, Ken R. Atkinson and Ray H. Baughman, Science, 306, 5700, p1358-1361, 19 November 2004) state that the small yarn diameters (about 20 micrometers for the four ply yarn), could eliminate the uncomfortable rigidity sometimes found for metal wire-containing conducting textiles that provide radio or microwave absorption, electrostatic discharge protection, textile heating, or wiring for electronic devices. Although a bulletproof, electrically conductive vest that could withstand temperature extremes from +450C to -196C does sound quite appealing.
"When Nature Calls We All Shall Drown" Johan Edlund
Comes textile-punk, to be featured in Neal Stephenson's upcoming book, Sweater Crash. Meanwhile, the Wachowski brothers have a new movie in the making about about a futuristic society where all of humanity is entrapped in a large, controlling single piece of nano-fabric. Of course, this was all done 50 years ago in an Asimov book.
*is run over by rotten tomatoes*
You do if it's an electricity storing smart thong that shocks to death anyone other than the daughter who touches it.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Comparing Carbon nanotubes to MP3 players is like comparing the transistor to a Radio Flyer wagon.
CNTs are like lasers. When the laser was invented in 1955 or so (someone correct me), it was billed as a "solution looking for a problem." No one knew what the hell to do with it. Naturally, it being the Cold War, most research money was pumped into Star Wars-style blasters...but now look at all the work done with lasers. Surgery, trace gas detection for pollution controls, CD players, DVD players, spectroscopy for materials science, the list goes on. The point is that CNT research is very early. Hell, nanotubes weren't known to exist until 1990 or so. This is one breakthrough out of about a billion or so possible with Carbon Nanotubes. Don't judge the technology based on the premise of "fancy clothing." Hell, the point of the link isn't the clothing part; it's the fact that a new fabrication method was invented that would improve production (and thus, deployment) of nanotubes by orders of magnitude. It's like finding a new way to make lasers on a broad scale instead of slowly making them by hand like in 1960. What you do with the plethora of nanotubes or lasers or what have you is up to you.
This may be a really stupid question. Related to a recent study concerning the replacements for asbestos. Back in the 80:ies when it was discovered that asbestos would cause lung-cancer or worse after repeated exposion to it, they replaced asbestos rather swiftly with materials like cheramic fibres. Now, recently they discovered that replacements like heat-resistant cheramics could also cause lung-cancer this. Perhaps just as dangerous as asbestos. The reason found, was because of the micro-fragments (dust) which would gather in the lungs and it's air-sacks (alveoli) and make them to swell abnormally and then risk causing cancer.
Even building insolation materials have also been questioned.
Now to my concern regarding carbon fibre.. has there been any studies on carbon tubes's affects on the human body? Carbon-fibre is an artificial material such as many insolations questioned. That is why I ask.
Ten years, twenty years or more from now, will we notice the dangerious side-affects of materials we push out on the market?
Somehow I have a feeling the ultrafine fiber fragments shed by these yarns or fabrics made from them with age and wear won't be so happy biologically.
Generally small particles or fillaments of any material smaller than a certain size are bad for you if inhaled (i.e. Pneumoconiosis), regardless of their composition.
Additionally, if fiber fragments are short and fine enough, you essentially have little needle-like objects that can do a lot of damage directly at the cellular level.
So, not that I'm being pessimistic or anything, but in the long term I don't think it'll remain an everyday item. It might hit the open market for a while, but a few decades of cancer studies, toxicoligical studies and lawsuits would likely bring an end to that.
While my guesses are just that, there are a few discouraging signs in research to date. Watch this area; we'll see whether further results warrant concern or not.
To be clear, I think this technology should certainly be pursued, but we need to be guarded in our optimisim regarding its widespread applicability.
DNA just wants to be free...