Large Sheets of Carbon Nanotubes Produced

StCredZero brings news that scientists have developed sheets of nanotubes that measure up to three feet by six feet, and they promise "slabs 100 square feet in area as soon as this summer." The developers see uses for the sheets in electromagnetic shields and airplane construction, and according to the Next Big Future blog, the sheets could also impact the development of solar sails. "The sheets, which the company can produce on its single machine at a rate of one per day, are composed of a series of nanotubes each about a millimeter long, overlapping each other randomly to form a thin mat. The tensile strength of the mat ranges from 200 to 500 megapascals--a measure of how tough it is to break. A sheet of aluminum of equivalent thickness, for comparison, has a strength of 500 megapascals. If Nanocomp takes further steps to align the nanotubes, the strength jumps to 1,200 megapascals."

Comments

Re:Awesome...

[chill]

One good reason is that aluminum is a limited resource. Although there's lots of it around, current estimates show that it will only last for about 200 more years ( source).

I don't have a copy of that book, so can't read it in context, but I still have to call bullshit on this.

Aluminum (Aluminium for you Brits) is the most abundant metal in the Earth's crust. While smelting it is energy intensive, recycling it is significantly less so. There is so much that has already been used, and available for recycling, I can't see us running out in the next couple of centuries, if ever.