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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."
You consider cheaper, more efficient power transmission, smaller, cheaper, more efficient motors, lighter, cheaper cars, etc. "unintelligent"? Ok, how about more efficient antennas for your cellphones leading to longer battery life? Surely you would consider that a Nobel-grade breakthrough!
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
It's not fat, it's just big boned.
Karnal
First of all that isn't quite true. Nanotubes are now used as the tips of some STMs, bucky paper composites, single nanotube transistors and a few others. THe major hurdle to the widespread use of nanotubes is solely due to their high cost. They are about ~1000$/gram the last time I checked so really they'd need to be pretty special to justify that kind of cost.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Nanotubes can theoretically carry a current of 1 billion Amps/cm^2 which is over a thousand times the current at which Copper gets fried. THey are also lighter and far stronger than any other conductor we have tested. Upwards of 200x as strong as medium grade steel and 4x less dense. Not even superconductors can carry the amount of power we are talking about here as the magnetic fields created by such a current destroy the superconductivity of all known examples of superconductors well before this amount of current is reached.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
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.
If you can show me a shipping product with a single nanotube transistor, I'll eat my hat. STM tips are a pretty limited market. I can't find any references to commercial buckypaper composities either.
We actually have a buckyball (C60) ion gun for use with our Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer (TOF-SIMS). As far as I know, these ion guns are the only existing commercial use for buckyballs. It isn't exactly a huge market.
Fullerenes have been around for nearly 25 years now. It they had anything more than hype, they'd be commercialized by now. I'm not saying it isn't possible, but none of the press releases I've ever read about fullerenes has lead to anything more than another press release.
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The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.
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)
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.