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NASA Wins Nanotechnology Award
Roland Piquepaille writes "NASA is rarely associated with nanotechnologies. But one of its researchers working at the NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center just received a Nanotech Briefs Nano 50 award for a manufacturing process for high-quality carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Because of its ability to produce bundles of CNTs without using a metal catalyst, this method is simpler, safer, and cheaper than current ones. The CNTs produced by this process are also purer and well suited for medical applications."
NASA is a waste of money!
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
You need a really small display cabinet to show off your nano technology awards.
liqbase
Sweet, now I can make a real Master Chief suit!
it also works under WiFi radiation, and can create wormholes with the simplicity of two non-similar concentric nanotubes irradiated with different kind of muons
?
NASA is usually pronounced nassa, not en-ey-ess-ey
SCSI is usually pronounced scuzzy, not ess-see-ess-ai
etc.
So how is CNT pronounced in mixed company?
I'm actually serious.
The picture on the NASA website shows the researcher in her lab creating high-purity nanotubes, and she's wearing street clothes.
How can the organization that makes $20 million spacesuits not use $20 labcoats?
I for one, welcome our Microscopic Carbon Overlords!
YAY NASA! Go inanimate carbon rod!
God spoke to me.
Sorry for the the silly subject line but I've got a question. How hot can a carbon nanotube be while still keeping it's structural strength? And how strong is that tube in normal conditions? I keep thinking about fishing rods, lasers and star wars whenever I read about carbon nanotubes, so if anyone has any information to stop my daydreams, please share.
The Euclidean path integral over all topologically trivial metrics can be done by time slicing and so is unitary when an
I remember back in 2005 when I had just started up a consulting firm with several of my buddies. To make ends meet, we did some contracting from online sources. One of the contracts we won was to produce a marketing plan for a small hospital up in the North East. They had some money and they were looking at starting up some sort of carbon nanotube startup. While researching, we came across Dr. Benavides's discovery. I read the paper she published. It was pretty neat. The technique is relatively simple. You use a heli-arc torch to zap a rod of carbon. This is the "arc" method of carbon nanotube deposition. However, you do so in a chamber filled with water vapor. Somehow (the paper did not specify), the water vapors acts as a catalyst to help form single-walled carbon nanotubes. Compared with lasers and chemical vapor deposition, a heli-arc setup is much cheaper, both to setup and during manufacturing. I'm not sure if you needed to treat the resulting carbon nanotubes with sulferic acid; however, in general, you get high purity at a low cost. We were able to contact the NASA office of technology transfer, and even went as far as setting up a phone conference between our client and Dr. Benavides. At about the time we contacted the tech transfer folks, they said that Dr. Benavides's technique has been out on the market for at least two years, but by the time we contacted them, their phones were ringing off the hook. Our client never managed to talk to Dr. Benavides -- heck, they didn't even pay us -- but I'm glad this technology is finally seeing some commercialization. Incidentally, there was a paper published in Jan/Feb of 2005 by a Japanese research group whose technique (water-catalyst deposition) sounded awefully similar to Dr. Benavides's work ...
Plus they seem to be less expensive, more safe, and easier to produce this way.
Does this work help move us closer to what is needed for a Space Elevator cable?
From what I understand, the SE cable is the only part we don't know how to construct; the other technology exists or can rather quickly if/when needed.
I for one welcome our inanimate carbon overlords.
There is a system for subverting the system and you should use that system!
Patent found here
Abstract:
"A non-catalytic process for the production of carbon nanotubes includes supplying an electric current to a carbon anode and a carbon cathode which have been securely positioned in the open atmosphere with a gap between them. The electric current creates an electric arc between the carbon anode and the carbon cathode, which causes carbon to be vaporized from the carbon anode and a carbonaceous residue to be deposited on the carbon cathode. Inert gas [*] is pumped into the gap to flush out oxygen, thereby preventing interference with the vaporization of carbon from the anode and preventing oxidation of the carbonaceous residue being deposited on the cathode. The anode and cathode are cooled while electric current is being supplied thereto. When the supply of electric current is terminated, the carbonaceous residue is removed from the cathode and is purified to yield carbon nanotubes."
I assume this means she's identified the electric properties of the metal catalyst as the significant factor in the success of those techniques, and simply, with genius, replaces those properties with an electric current. You could probably do the same thing using a metamaterial or an EM radiation cavity, if you wanted to bypass the patent.
* "Intert gas" is usually helium, or the much, much cheaper alternative of nitrogen.
All rites reversed 2010