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Electrically Conductive Cement
zero_offset writes "The Tokyo Institute of Technology has announced a process for creating an inexpensive, nearly transparent, electrically conductive alumina cement. The conductivity is comparable to metal, and the transparency should be adequate for use in display panels. The process relies upon commonplace and inexpensive metals compared to the rare metals such as iridium currently used in display panels."
I see they're finally getting around to using that formula Scotty provided.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Bzzzzt!
Hazards of sans-serif fonts at small pitches, I guess.
Soon there may be some real repercussions when I'm lounging on the concrete wall outside the library and the security guard comes around to say,"Hey! You can't be sleeping here!" *bzzt* OUCH!
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Use it to build RF-proof houses. No more problems with Wifi security!
Don't be fooled, this technology was given to them by the Enterprise crew, who traded their knowledge of transparent aluminum for present day currency.
New webcomic updated on Sundays: HERE
I'm one step closer to building my talking house... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHfVZS7I2fY&feature =PlayList&p=4013E3F37F4C8462&index=0
Does anybody else remember the conductive LEGOs introduced with the 9V system? It just seems to me that this, if cheap enough, might be useful in construction environments where wire is difficult or impractical to route.
Depending on its conductivity, it might even be useful for home and industrial high-current applications.
Granted, electrical wiring is a pretty mature field, but I'm sure that something like this opens up possibilities.
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A stadium where the entire surface of the building blinks and scrolls ads at you.
That, or extra-heavy monitors.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
So does this technically qualify as transparent aluminum?
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
I'm sooooo going to TIT
RTFA, the rare metal in LCDs is Indium, not Iridium.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
No, Franco, I said concrete BOOTS, not concrete BOOKS.
"Cats like plain crisps"
Cement = anything used to glue things together
Concrete = a building material composed of aggregates and cement
Concrete is used for buildings, roads, sidewalks, etc. The aggregate in that case is usually rocks. The cement is usually Portland cement. It's not correct to call it "cement", though people will usually understand what you mean.
But judging from the comments so far, not in this case. This isn't a replacement for Portland cement, and they're not talking about building materials. This is the kind of cement used to glue bits of LCD screens to each other.
The conductivity is comparable to metal
...compared to the rare metals such as iridium
'metal' is pretty generic, and 'metals' conduct at varying levels (understatement). TFA actually states 'manganese'. Why distort the original posting in the summary?
WTF? TFA states 'indium'.
Methinks the poster should rely on the copy/paste strategy more often than 'transcribe it manually'.
Anyway, cool stuff. Anyone know enough about display panel construction to give an off-the-cuff estimate of whether this new stuff will take more energy to produce?
eskwayrd = m^2c^4
1. Find a way to use this stuff to make computer chips, as well as monitors.
2. Start using 3D printers to make them. Suddenly, hardware is open source.
3. ???
4. Profit!
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
...wouldn't have to strap myself to a pipe with a wire whenever I decided to work with CMOS components. Sounds pretty useful.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
When I read this, I was thinking of Fab@Home with the idea that perhaps you could use this process to help build crude home-built ICs out of simple and cheap materials.
Unfortunately, it seems as though the process is a bit more complicated, and I don't know how you can get a nozzle heated to 1100 degrees C in a reduced oxygen environment (presumably why it is in a sealed glass tube to work) that would also be something you would want on your kitchen table.
While of interest to a materials science guy, this really isn't that spectacular of a deal here. It does have the potential of improving LCD screen luminance values, reducing power requirements for laptops (the screen sucks quite a bit of power in the overall system), and helping in other ways. But it isn't something that simply can be poured out of a nozzle.
I had one of their sweatshirts. I remember seeing a visiting group of engineering professors from the university walking around with "TIT" written proudly on their shirts.
From TFA: "the cement would make an environmentally-friendly alternative because its ingredients are more readily available". That doesn't make it environmentally friendly, it just makes it less environmentally damaging. There's a BIG difference.
Also, is 30kg grip strength pretty low for an adult male? I'm pretty sure it is...
What they won't tell you is that it was really developed as a deterent to public urination in the streets.
Las Vegas couldn't get more annoying. Everywhere from sidewalks to bathrooms blaring logos at you. Even worse would be the saturation subliminal advetising. "No really honey, the floors and walls told me to gamble more".
It could have some interesting applications as a road surface. traffic alerts and stop lights being part of the road itself.
We are all just people.
Will it turn out like broadband over powerlines?
I regret that I only have one mod point to give per post.
Forgive my ignorance, but most of the comments only refer to large/heavy structures using this material. But, the article seems like it's saying that this could be used to replace Indium in televisions. Can this not possibly lead to cheaper and more efficient televisions or am I missing something? Can this also not be useful in making cheaper displays in general?
Fangulo... we can't use concrete for body disposal anymore.
But we can for some cool electricuting.
Using this for your outside walls in combination with a high-voltage alarm system should be more effective than a siren!
The author of the actual paper is Hideo Hosono, not "Hideo Hono". The paper, available here, was not published in the April 11 issue of Nano Letters. Rather, it was published on-line on March 22.
The acronym is TiTech. These kids design pico-satellites and put them into low earth orbit, among other things.
Last I knew, it would help with the transmission of Google TiSP.
The Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japanese equivalent of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)...
"Don't wizz on the electric fence!"
I did a college engineering report on this... in 2004.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
Yeah, like my cousin's friend's uncle! He peed on a fence and his testicles exploded. True story! Ask 'im!
it is axiomatic that guys will always, uh, TEST the electrified wire in a cattle pen.
and the fence charger will tell them that YES, a urine stream DOES conduct electricity.
quite ZAP well ZAP in ZAP fact ZAP...
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Can I use this as a substitute when building electronics?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Potholes.
A pothole in the wrong place could seriously jack up your vision of future roadsigns. I'll take the standard signs we have now, thanks.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Yah, if everyone in iraq were well... a moron. If they hadn't studied a bit, if nobody paid attention to the past 50 fucking years
What? Are you trying to say that things we (the US) did during the Cold War still count? The Cold War is over. Why are all those people still so upset? More importantly, who is Anna Nicole's baby-daddy?
We are all just people.
Who the f*** decided that sentences on the Internet shall no longer be formatted with two spaces after a period?!
Someone who's never taken a typing class? Annoys me, too.
Program Intellivision!