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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.'"
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"
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.
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.
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.
Fire wasn't regulated either, at it could burn down whole forests!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In the larger view, did we ever? Two things have spurred most advances in human history... War and sex. Of the two, war has been the dominant force for the large bulk of it. Even vaccines have war uses. If your army is immune to some biological agent and your enemy's is not, you can then use that agent as a weapon (unless you're playing by some arbitrary set of rules such as the Geneva Conventions - Note: I make no claim as to whether the GCs are positive or negative, but they are pretty arbitrary.). Even vaccines for chronic diseases such as polio help one's army by increasing the numbers of able-bodied workers and soldiers and decreasing the numbers of those who need support.
So what if it is developed for military purposes? It will trickle to the private sector soon enough, just as GPS, the Internet, and carbon-fiber composites have.
Mess not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
Terrible, isn't it? People doing things without permission! Unregulated activity! We must bring this irresponsible "scientific research" under government control! After all, we know that government can be trusted to never do anything irresponsible such as, oh, I don't know, maybe spraying crowds of people with poison gas or setting off nuclear explosives in the atmosphere? And no government would ever enslave large numbers of young men and send them off to try to kill young men similarly enslaved by another government. No. Let's have government control everything. We know we can trust them, after all. Just look at history.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Actually it may be that we've learned our lesson. Even though nanotechnology is still a very nascent field, serious efforts are already underway to measure the health effects and safety concerns for these kinds of materials. For instance, in the United States, NIOSH (a branch of the CDC tasked with evaluating work-related risks) has an effort underway to quantify the effects of nano-materials on people (link). There are similar efforts worldwide for this "NanoEHS" issue (e.g. this).
Only time will tell, of course. But as someone working in the broad field of "nano", I can say that health, safety, and environmental impact are already a part of our research plans. There are considerable efforts to make sure we understand the impact of these materials before sending them to market. Also, since we are the ones working with these materials daily, we are certainly concerned with any possible toxicity.
Mistakes may still be made (e.g. a product released ends up having an unforeseen interaction with some other material/drug/etc.), but presently it seems that agencies are being appropriately proactive in terms of assessing risk before commercialization is even a serious consideration.
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.
Actually, it's all about sex. Invasion is always about stealing resources to make a particular leader more powerful (and thus more likely to reproduce).
It's also a great way to acquire distant territory to which you ship off excess kids.
Exactly. It's like carbon fiber, except electrically conductive and much, much stronger, and contains 50% or more actual carbon instead of the 1-5% that carbon fiber compositions currently contain (from TFA).
So, pretty much not like carbon fiber at all except that it contains carbon.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
actually fire is regulated in a lot of places. i just recently got back from Yosemite and they have strict regulations in the park about where you can or can't start fires.
you can't just start fires anywhere you want. arson is still a crime AFAIK.
So we should all just squat in the mud until the sun goes out, living in grass huts and eating windfalls (but only in the manner of our grandfathers: Don't you dare do anything new.)
If you believe that carbon nanotubes are dangerous get some (they are available for sale) and demonstrate their hazardous nature in controlled experiments. BTW buckyballs and carbon nanotubes occur naturally in soot. You might want to look into outlawing fire.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
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.
While it is true that it is illegal to set other people's property on fire without their permission, I don't need a license to light up my barbecue, turn on my furnace, or use my acetylene torch (and the latter, correctly adjusted, can generate quite a few buckyballs and nanotubes).
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
You mean the stuff that was damaging the Peregrine Falcon's eggs, and was later banned, only to have us find out that the eggs became even softer AFTER the ban? The eggs were soft because of PCB.
Bird populations were INCREASING before the ban, and decreased right after the ban.
DDT does not build up in animal tissue.
DDT is not harmful to humans.
DDT would save tons of lives.
This stuff is great but it needs to be carefully regulated so we don't end up with an asbestosis-like problem down the road.
Government regulation is a good thing, when it comes to things like OSHA and the FDA. I don't think that the capitalist free market will put worker safety first when it comes to manufacturing a hazardous product (Bhopal, anyone), so its up to our governments to protect us from overzealous exploitation of wonderful new things.
Maybe nanotubes are not hazardous, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.
survive a photographer's flash
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
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
One of he tenants of modern science is considering consequences instead of embracing every seeming discovery as immediately applicable as a solution.
No... Considering the consequences is _not_ part of the scientific method.
While considering the consequences is a vital step. Consequences falls under the category of value judgments, and are part of the political method.
It is vital that politics be kept out of the scientific method. If we allow the scientific method to be polluted by politics, Science will not be able to help us solve problems. Look at what happened to Mr Galileo Galilei in the era when politics controlled science.
- High Tech workers, please say NO to Union Carpenters, their Union sees fit to control our compensation.
One of he tenants of modern science is considering consequences instead of embracing every seeming discovery as immediately applicable as a solution. You might want to get out of the mud.
One of the tenants of modern science is a real dick. Not only has he failed to pay his rent on time once this year, but he doesn't do jack shit to keep the place clean. It's a filthy mess. Modern science should just evict his ass.
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.