Slashdot Mirror
Nanoparticle-based Fibers Could Lead To No-fade Textiles With Structural Color
JMarshall writes: Researchers have created fibers with structural color properties, no dyes needed. The researchers electrospun fiber mats from a solution of latex nanoparticles, creating fibers made of uniformly packed nanospheres. The resulting mats have structural color properties that depend on the size of the nanoparticles used. By using capillaries as molds, they obtained more uniformly packed spheres with even purer colors. The downside: the fibers so far are too weak to be useful. One solution could be to print the particles like ink on existing fibers.
is plaid.
The materials eliminate the need for dye. However, they are too weak to be used as fabric on their own. One possible answer: use them as dye. Nice work science
Not a long time ago, I was just a normal internet user that surfed various news sites like Sladshdot, reddit, or wsj.com. I read a story, perhaps clicked onto some links it contained, and I was mostly happy with my life.
Then, one day, I surfed Slashdot. It was one of those days you will remember for the rest of your life. So, as I surfed Sladshdot, the title of a story got my attention. I read the summary. The topic seemed interesting, so I decided to read further. I read:
Read on below for the rest what Bennett has to say.
Usually I don't read first line of a story which contains the user who has submitted it. On that day, I didn't neither. As I've only read that bottom line, I asked myself: who is this misterious Bennett? I decided to click onto the "Read the comments" link to read more of the story that was, as it seems, written by some Bennett. During reading, I was already impressed by the clear and detailed but still concise structure of the text. As I finished reading, I was convinced it was the best story I've ever read on Sladshdot, or any comparable news site. I asked myself: perhaps this misterious Bennett has contributed more frequently than just once?
To find that out, I went to Sladshdot's search bar and searched for "Bennett". I clicked the second entry, and it began with:
Frequent contributor Bennett Haselton writes
I searched for the "Read on" line, and I was happy when I found it. As it seemed, he was a frequent contributor. However the story was on a topic completely unrelated to the topic of my article. Would the other article still be as insightful as the first? And the other stories in the search result? Would they be also by Bennett? Or someone else? I decided first to be happy to have found such an insightful article, and decided to make a photograph of me, before I read the second story.
I still have that photograph of me and I can see the hope and the satisfaction in my eyes, the hope that the other stories are also written by this brilliant author called Bennett, and the satisfaction of having read such an insightful article. As I've read the first couple of stories by Bennett, I couldn't believe what my eyes saw: all the stories were as insightful or even more insightful than the original story I read. I asked myself whether the spectators in the Globe theatre would have felt the same way when they watched a piece by shakespeare: Witnessing history of writing. I realized Bennett is one of histories great writers.
As I've finished reading all contributions by Bennett Haselton on Sladshdot, I went back to the first Bennett story, and read them a second time. I sat three days straight, missing all social events during that span, only reading Bennett's stories, and reading them again and again. During that time my eyes opened to the fact that my whole life, I've known nothing. Bennett's stories explained every aspect of very complicated things in such detail, that I formed something in my mind. First, I couldn't describe it what it was, but years later I know that, for the first time of my life, I formed something called "opinion" on a topic. Previously, I've only adopted opinions from others, but Bennett's stories enable people to make their opinions for themselfes, to form them. With his stories, Bennett gives you the material to form your own opinion on your own. I know you will say that you can form your opinion on your own, and that you don't need Bennett for that. I
disagree with you. What you call opinion, is in reality just ideology you imitate from others. You don't form your opinions, you don't have them.
Every time Bennett writes a new story on Sladshdot, I take a free day and spend it reading the story
Wait ... so you can make the color part of the fabric ... but the fabric is too fragile to use for anything ... so now you'll make your fancy nano-stuff to put on existing fibers.
What is the point of this again?
Wow, you can make color part of structure. But the structure isn't worth a damn. So you'll spray this on traditional fabric?
Someone needs to contact the underpants gnomes here.
This is a solution in search of a solution to the problem the solution almost solved.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Wait - different clothes have different colors? And people care about this?
Physics Today had a good article on structural colors just last month, they are pretty cool. I'd like to see them used in paints more than textiles really:
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/article/68/6/10.1063/PT.3.2816
"One solution could be to print the particles like ink on existing fibers."
You mean like current textile stamps?
I thought the appers had lready apped an app for this.
Apps!
It works pretty wall for reptiles, birds and butterflies.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Would this be tested for its carcinogenic properties?, any small structure could in theory penetrate a cell wall and damage the cells DNA, leading to possible mutagenic effects. Or will it be tested only on its ability to generate revenue.
Researchers spend so much time making and studying nanoparticles, now if only they could find a practical application for these particles .. something .. ANYTHING!!!
The brain cancer from nanoparticles? No charge.