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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."
Rudimentary quantum computing can be done with the ballistic nature of how electrons flow through a sheet of graphene, or in this case, a carbon nanotube. Expect to see computing related articles.
If you don't understand what it mean to say that electrons move in a "ballistic" manner through these nanotubes, imagine that cool trick your math teach showed you in high school with marbles and pegs making a bell curve. Now imagine being able to change the outcome by removing a lot of peg, and then making your computer understand the results.
Probably much lighter than aluminum, for the same strength.
The question I have is, how strong could it be for the same weight? Off to rtfa...
If this stuff is as strong as aluminum, why aren't we using it to actually build things like cars and buildings?
Has anyone leaked the details of how their process works beyond the little 'teaser' in the article? Could it be scaled down to personal size? Im thinking it would be great to add their process to a home 3D printer.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Conceivably now a big truck AND the Internet could be fabricated out of a series of tubes!
Airplane Photos, Airline News, Planespotting Guides
Besides having very different properties from aluminum, and besides the last sentence stating that they can be upped to 1,200 megapascals; this could be considered a proof of concept. Excuse the tautology, but: as technologies develop, they improve.
(First off I work in this area) I know one we have tried purchasing these sheets in the past a couple time and have not been able to. They might be able to make them but the availability is still very low for any research or products.
to replace my tinfoil hat...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
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). That may seem like quite a long time, but it probably wouldn't hurt to start investigating alternatives before we run out.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Maybe the carbon nanotube sheets are made out of, oh, I don't know, carbon? Seems to me there's no shortage of that stuff..
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I want my next MacBook to be made out of this stuff.
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.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
People. Carbon nanotubes are made out of people.
!
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/tables/elabund.html
Aluminum makes up 8% of the Earth's crust. The earth's composition of carbon appears to be much lower, the same page shows it's 0.03% of the earth's total weight. That doesn't say much of how easy it is to collect either resource, but abundance doesn't seem to be the answer. I think it's the strength-to-weight ratio that makes carbon nanotube materials interesting, but it's still pretty expensive to make.
If we feed them, then there will be even more demand for amluminum. That sounds like a bad idea.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Pure aluminum is soft, aircraft grade aluminum (and virtually all aluminum used in the real world) is alloyed with other elements, greatly increasing its strength.
Here's a breakdown of the composition of Aluminum Alloy 6061 to give you an idea...
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
It seems you're correct correct- do you suppose they've gotten around this?
Those of us who think they know everything annoy those of us who do.
Bauxite isn't even a mineral. It's just a common industrial name for a kind of rock that includes a variety of minerals and is the most efficient way to produce aluminum using existing technologies. Any clay soil contains large quantities of aluminum. When the great clay shortage hits, I'm sure we'll have plenty of advance notice.
First off, they don't explode all at once, they explode tube by tube and the explosions are very small. It takes a fairly powerful direct laser strike to cause this to happen. I.E. a hand-held laser pointed at a plane will be about as useful as shooting a BB gun at it.
Second... I guess you've never heard of... paint.
And finally... not all carbon nanotubes are created equally.
FUD.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Aluminium for you Brits
Yes, sadly we weren't subjected to the spelling errors of a certain Mr Hall...
tensile strength != toughness. And, unfortunately, aluminum is not particularly ductile. At least, not when compared to, say, steel.
But aluminum does have a very good strength to weight ratio. Also, it doesn't rust. Instead it forms an oxide layer which prevents further oxidation.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I'm not sure who Mr. Hall is, or what he has to do with naming conventions and misspellings, but the original name for Aluminum was "Alumium", which got changed to "Aluminum", before going through a final contortion to become "Aluminium". All three versions were created by Sir Humphry Davy, a British chemist, and the process took roughly 5 years so some confusion over the "proper" spelling is understandable. The usage of Aluminum over Aluminium in the US seems largely due to the fact that Websters Dictionary stuck with his second version of the word.
(source: wikipedia.)
It depends a lot on the properties of the material. For example, while aluminum sheets are made of microscopic crystals, there is little danger of breathing significant amounts of aluminum unless you spend a lot of work processing it into a fine powder first. These sheets may be the same way. Who knows? We don't.
...you Brits invented the language.
We Americans perfected it.
*ducks*
So this is 1-2GPa tensile strength. We need about 60-100GPa tensile strength for a space elevator.
I strongly suspect that the tensile strength quoted is actually a typo by the reporter. Either that or he got his facts seriously wrong. It is unfathomable to me how a sheet of carbon nanotubes would be LESS strong than an equivalent sheet of aluminum. And any company that created such a wimpy sheet of nanotubes sure wouldn't be boasting about it.
Peter
Yes, AND they'll want to use aluminum foil to cover the leftovers.
.sig withheld by request
and it's within 2 orders of magnitude to get there. Not too bad. Shouldn't be too hard to engineer, or tweak it to get there.
..........FULL STOP.