Slashdot Mirror
Honda Makes Nanotube Breakthrough
SkinnyGuy writes "Carbon nanofibers and nanotubes are the future of computers, cars, energy and more, but it won't happen until someone figures out how to make carbon nanotubes more efficiently and in formations that can deliver enough energy and functionality to offer practical solutions for real-world problems. Honda's latest breakthrough could be the first step. Of course, Intel is working on similar carbon nanotube fabrication technology. Whoever finally delivers a practical solution, it sounds like a win-win for us."
Use only as a pure conductive option? There should be so many more intelligent applications that could be used.
Unless whoever gets it put a big fat expensive patent around it.
... and a win-win-win for whoever develops it first ...
given the fact that whoever comes up with a practical solution first will probably patent it, i wonder if the general public's gain is in this situation is factoring in corporate greed ... i would MAYBE call this a "win-win" situation in 50 years or so!
Useful for everything, used in nothing.
I'm wondering about this, too.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The last posting: "Google expunges Pirate Bay from Search Results"
Was it expunged? (no link)
Mr Gingrich, it's time to turn off the computer and take your meds.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The Slashdot summary is the only place that this piece of incremental experimentation is referred to as a breakthrough. I'm getting tired of every little news stores that has anything to do with nano-(fill_in_the_blank) being labeled a breakthrough.
TFA speaks of filtering the semiconducting fibers from the conducting ones as if this might be a big deal. I would have thought that magnetic separation would be the obvious solution. Am I missing something?
The physical behavior of a conductor moving with respect to a magnetic field is so dramatically different than that of a non-conductor that I have to believe that a semiconductor would behave differently also.
My favorite demo of this effect is to drop a strong magnet through a section of aluminum conduit. The magnet falls normally when released next to but outside the pipe, but a strong magnet can take up to five minutes to fall through the inside. A cow magnetin a half inch pipe is particularly effective.
I can see it now... A team of assembly women who all look exactly like 7 of 9. Maybe Honda isn't such a bad place to work after all!
it turns out that nanotube technology causes cancer on a hugemongous scale and it wipes out the human race.
Its a win-win until this technology gets slapped with copyright patent trademarks and all sorts of other legal bullshit making it cost an arm and a leg for anyone else to produce.
hmmm I just did a search on google for the pirate bay and it didn't look like anything was purged to me.... maybe some one was full of crap.
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
so who do we sue when we start getting cancer?
Lets imagine for a second a future where our 'pollution' is the base building material for the majority of products constructed.
Carbon nanotubes/fibers could be the perfect sequestering medium/method for all the CO2 in the atmosphere. They have already shown to be such a useful product, we are continually finding new ways to make use of them. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that only iron has proven to be as diverse.
If mass-production ever takes off I suggest we proclaim this to be the birth of the Carbon age.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Unobtanium. It's about damned time!
It seems like every news announcement out there about material science advances involves carbon nanotubes. Is there anything they can't do???
Possible uses :
1. As an ideal semiconductor
2. As an ideal, super-lightweight conductor
3. As a drug delivery device
4. As an antibiotic
5. As a super strong space elevator cable
6. As the tip of an SEM
7. In electrically conductive clothing
8. As a super-strong super armor
9. Part of a super capacitor
10. Part of a super fast charging lithium ion battery
11. Part of a super-efficient solar cell
And like 50 uses besides! What CAN'T you do with carbon nanotubes? Cure cancer? No, I think someone is working on that....
If this was the technology tree in a strategy game, carbon nanotubes would be THE tech to research to unlock the good stuff.
I think I'm lost because I Googled, "Diluting the word breakthrough," and was linked directly to this article. Well, since I read the article and I'm already commenting I might as well ask: just how closer are we (in measurable terms) to cheap, easily-manufactured materials that (aside from being so green it gives captain planet a hard-on) are as versatile as they are (so very) useful that we may apply it -- not unlike one applies pixie dust -- to our computers, video games, cars, economy, hopes and dreams to knock those things up a few notches? Or have we (dare I say) not reached a "breakthrough" in this respect... again?
In 20 years when the patents expire, perhaps.
The one place where nanotubes might be of the most benefit is boosting the storage in ultracapacitors. The technology is making advances towards the point where they might match or surpass batteries.
Correctly it is:
Carbon nanofibers and nanotubes could be the future of computers, cars, energy and more,
Because we do not know if we can actually solve the problems that stop us from preferring to use them until now.
Simple logic. Apparently the opposite of what simple minds use. :/
Let's go to the south pacific. I have a earthquake to provoke, and a door to open. :P
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
What I find funny about all this is that Honda, the biggest, most anti-electric-vehicle automaker out there, may just have given electric vehicles the best gift they could have asked for. Not in terms of batteries, but in terms of nanotube-composite charging cables. Optimal metallic nanotubes have a resistivity a tiny fraction that of copper; they're practically room temperature superconductors, in terms of resistance. And it's directional, too -- the current flows readily down the length of the tubes, but poorly from side to side. I've seen varying numbers, and I think it depends on the types of tubes and their application, but this article says that CNTs on microchips can carry 1,000 times the current density of copper and silver. Now, you won't get that extreme level in a composite, but those are still amazing numbers to have as a starting point.
In short, they're perfect for the ideal super-high-power charging cable. Far thinner, lighter, and less cooling needed for a given power output. You could probably have a cable off that monster 800kW charger Aerovironment made for TARDEC be light enough for a six year old to handle.
Obviously, the ultra-high-power chargers still need the typical battery buffer so that they don't strain the grid, but if metallic CNT cables hit the market, there will be some serious current flowing with a much lower charger size and cost. :)
I just invaded Grammar Czechoslovakia and duped Grammar Neville Chamberlain; now it's on to Grammar Poland.
"Whoever finally delivers a practical solution, it sounds like a win-win for us"
Not unless these patents expire and IP rights become public domain.... Then its a win-win
He reckoned I was crazy, when I said that in the nearish future city buildings will likely be constructed of man made materials produced at a molecular level, and designed to replace the predominant construction materials and be cheaper and stronger exhibit better properties etc that the norm of glass steel and concrete. Seriously this seems logical and inevitable enough to me, but it seems the man on the street doesnt get it yet.
http://www.anticharisma.com/
Assuming we replant, isn't this the case now with products that come from trees?
OK, so there's a car wreck and there is nano-dust everywhere. How hazardous is this stuff to inhale, get on your skin, etc? Asbestosis anyone? What about cleaning it up?
Is there a 'peer reviewed' medical consensus on the health effects yet? I mean, there's that scene where hostile nano-bots are being turned into 'dead toner' in Diamond Age, but forget hostile nano-bots... what about just plain nano-dust in your lungs?