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Buckypaper — Out of the Lab, Into the Market
doomsdaywire writes "Buckypaper isn't exactly news to anyone here. However, this article quotes Ben Wang, director of Florida State's High-Performance Materials Institute, saying, 'Our plan is perhaps in the next 12 months we'll begin maybe to have some commercial products.' The article continues: '"If this thing goes into production, this very well could be a very, very game-changing or revolutionary technology to the aerospace business," said Les Kramer, chief technologist for Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, which is helping fund the Florida State research. ... The long-range goal is to build planes, automobiles and other things with buckypaper composites. The military also is looking at it for use in armor plating and stealth technology.'"
news, read? /. ???
WTF is buckypaper?
Go go Gadget Nailgun!
The President has been in strict opposition to the use of buckypaper in aerospace applications, especially in the construction of the next Air Force 1. He noted "the buck stops here."
My plan is perhaps in the next 12 months I'll begin maybe to believe this is something more than vaporware.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gY3jWGn-XBc_Hu-NXj5YYubxQlPAD93SBGCO0
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Nanotech. A whole new zoo of materials, significantly different in their properties from the same stuff in macro form, but that isn't in itself regulated.
This could turn into another DDT
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
If a sphere that looks like a geodesic dome is bucminsterfullerine, then a tube that looks like a roll of fake PVC tiling should be called polybathroomfloorine. Except James Blish used that for a graphite-like chemical explosive already.
I hope they make a paper bicycle like the one in Virtual Light.
According to the article, buckypaper "conducts electricity like copper or silicon." So it's either a conductor or an insulator.
The article smells like roses or shit.
I have yet to read about some invention that doesn't have some military tie-in. It seems like we don't invent things for any other purpose anymore. Is the US military really that underpowered? I doubt it.
If you want, you can get nanotubes (in multiple forms, including buckypaper) from Unidym. This is the company which was founded by Richard Smalley. They've spent the last decade basically buying up patents and companies working with carbon nanotubes (in addition to doing their own research). If the Florida State guys have anything which isn't already covered by a Unidym patent, they'll just get bought up, or brought in, or something like that. Unidym seems to like collecting academic research partners.
The eternal sticky note!
Never fades, can hold-up over 200lbs.
now, make the buckypaper into touch-sensitive photovoltaic e-buckypaper with a GB of memory or so and you have the perfect notekeeping device.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
I know one thing: it makes proposing crashing paper airplanes into Rudy Guliani sound a tad more threatening than intended.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
potential applications of buckypaper listed on Wikipedia:
seems to me it would be easier to produce buckypaper in the quantities required for use as a new type of electronic display or chemical filter than it would be to build an entire plane out of it.
This could turn into another DDT
If by "another DDT", you mean, "another intergovernmental ban on a harmless product with great potential due to pressure from environmental hysteria, then I agree with you.
Bucky paper cleans like no other and leaves a starfish you could eat your dinner off.
Seriously, is there anything carbon nanotubes can't do?
No sig today...
Space elevator? New types of vehicle construction? Hah. Fishing rods.
Google up some results for 'IM7', one of the current strongest epoxy graphite composite materials. Exclude 'altec' from your search results, unless you're interested in speakers. What is IM7 used for? Fishing rods.
It's Dick Cheney's connections to the defense industry that has helped the fishing rod manufacturers get early access to such technology, I'm telling ya! The first journalist to conclusively shed some light on this shadowy connection will win a Pulitzer for sure!
There is an unusual set of warnings being distributed with Buckypaper:
Caution: Buckypaper may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.
Buckypaper contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.
Do not use Buckypaper on concrete.
Discontinue use of Buckypaper if any of the following occurs:
If Buckypaper begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.
Buckypaper may stick to certain types of skin.
When not in use, Buckypaper should be returned to its special container and kept under refrigeration. Failure to do so relieves the makers of Buckypaper, Wacky Products Incorporated, and its namesake, Buckminster Fuller, of any and all liability.
Ingredients of Buckypaper include an unknown glowing green substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space.
Buckypaper has been shipped to our troops in Saudi Arabia and is being dropped by our warplanes on Iraq.
Do not taunt Buckypaper.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
it is hardly harmless.
The same can be said for any chemical, even water. The important thing is not the composition, but the dose. You can overdose on anything, but everything can be useful in the right dose. What I am advocating is the removal of emotionalism from the environmental agenda, and a move back towards science. The fact that people have overdosed their land on chemical X never implies that chemical X should be banned for use in any dose by anyone.
So what language did you feed it?
Cause last time a material changed the world so much it didn't work out so well.
DDT does not build up in animal tissue. DDT is not harmful to humans. DDT would save tons of lives.
This is the most ignorant spew I've read on slashdot in years. Go read the Wikipedia article.
It accumulates in fatty tissue. It's found in the tissue of many adults today- despite having been banned FORTY YEARS AGO. That say something to you, asshole? Second: studies found proof that DDT and derivatives cause diabetes. Notice when diabetes became a big problem? Mmmm hmm, the last fifty or so years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Effects_on_human_health
Read the PAGES of studies showing all sorts of health effects.
Please help metamoderate.
If I understood his statements properly, I think he meant we should nuke the government.
Given more modern research and research methods, some governments are considering re-approving the use of DDT. Responsibly used (which it was not in the past), it could be very beneficial to the overall environment.
Do you somehow think that somebody buying up anything having to do with micro carbon structures is a good thing? That's about as good as having a name like Dick Smalley. (I know it was said elsewhere, but that is like a target painted on somebody saying "kick me". I would have changed my name while still an infant.)
Been done, dude. You completely ripped off the "Happy Fun Ball" bit from TV. That's called "plagiarism".
While I appreciate the humor, I got the impression you were trying to pass it off as your own. Shame.
Whoa. Didn't know that.
Soon as I read "airplane" and "conductive" in the same article ideas started coming to me.
Umm.........lessee......If you alternated NON-conductive layers in with the Buckypaper composite body of the aircraft, one could theoretically design/build-in all the electronic circuitry right into the structural body. Printed circuits inside the walls of the aircraft, essentially. Save even more weight, not to mention cost, when you could toss all that copper/silver currently used for wiring.
Build the body of the aircraft, then simply add more layers to the inside for circuitry.
Managerese
But, what if you had an asthmatic child, and your neighbor, with permits and all the other blessing from the governmental authorities, had a large brush-pile fire, and the wind happened to blow the smoke at your house for several hours, and the resulting smoke caused your child to have a severe asthma reaction? Who's at fault, then?
The neighbor, but the neighbor's insurer will pick it up.
I did not notice the link the first time around. I retract my criticism.