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Scientists Identify Possible New Substance With Highest Melting Point
JoshuaZ writes: Researchers from Brown University have tentatively identified an alloy of hafnium, nitrogen and carbon as having an expected melting point of about 7,460 degrees Fahrenheit (4120 Celsius). This exceeds that of the previous record-breaker, tantalum hafnium carbide, which melts at 7,128 F (3942 C). Its record stood for almost a century. At this point, the new alloy is still hypothetical, based on simulations, so the new record has not yet been confirmed by experiment. The study was published in Physical Review B (abstract), and a lay-summary is available at the Washington Post. If the simulations turn out to be correct, the new alloy may be useful in parts like jet engines, and the door will be opened to using similar simulations to search for substances with even higher melting points or with other exotic properties.
I want to make a boiling chamber out of this stuff for electrical generation.....
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Then publicize. Don't dream up a vaporware material and talk about that to the press.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I googled "jet engine temperature" and got 2000 C. Is the difference between 3942 and 4120 going to matter in a jet engine?
If the simulations turn out to be correct, the new alloy may be useful in parts like jet engines, and the door will be opened to using similar simulations to search for substances with even higher melting points or with other exotic properties.
No, it won't. Materials for jet engines must be reasonably affordable, machinable or otherwise workable, and available in large quantities. I have about 4600 lbs [2086kg] of 422 stainless going through my shop right now for a single row of blades for one machine. They're big blades, but even for small blades, hundreds of pounds of material is common. An alloy of hafnium, nitrogen and carbon isn't going to be cheap enough for that to ever be feasible. It is probably a brittle material as well. Brittle materials and a high vibration environment don't mix.
Maybe you could apply it as a coating, but I'm not sure how that would be possible. Almost all coatings of this type require you to liquify or vaporize the coating material. Plus, you run into the same problem as before- a thin coating won't protect the base metal, and a thick one would be prohibitively expensive.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Is this kind of liking finding an acid that will dissolve any substance -- what do you store it in? Exactly what do you use as a cauldron for forging parts with the substance with the highest melting point ever? (Yeah, probably magnetic containment.) Regardless, it seems rather difficult to make anything out of this stuff; if it was easy, they have produced a working sample, instead of a theoretical substance based on a computer simulation.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I posit that Unobtainium has a melting point of 15,775 Celsius, a freezing point of -500 Kelvin, and yo'Momma, there, dude. get back into the lab and prove me wrong.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
What would happen if they used quarternium?
Since it is trivial to convert Fahrenheit to Celcius or Kelvin (just type in into Google, duh!) I don't think it really matters what units are used, as long as they are clearly labeled.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Can jet fuel melt Hafnium beams?
You keep milking that cheesy cow fetish whey too much.
That is pretty cool, so now we can land a missle anywhere on Earth in about 45 minutes instead of 1 hour. I'm sure it'll help with atmosphere re-entry stuff too, but who cares about space stuff.
If you've by chance read the Wassenaar munitions list, you'd find they ban any exotic limits above current science pretty much across the board. No material stronger than X but lighter than Y, no materials made up of more than X percentage of various metals, etc.
Surely any advance this creates, that treaty would ban..... just read it.
http://www.wassenaar.org/controllists/2014/WA-LIST%20%2814%29%202/WA-LIST%20%2814%29%202.pdf
I'm guessing the material should be quite happy to sit at 4000K, which would make for a much higher luminous efficiency than tungsten. Kind of like a 21st century version of the Nernst lamp (which was twice as efficient as a carbon filament, but half of tungsten's efficiency).
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
Evidently not, TFA used glorious Fahrenheit.
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i have a better idea, go sukadik.
> Since it is trivial to convert Fahrenheit to Celcius or Kelvin (just type in into Google, duh!)
Not really a feasible solution, but what I really wanted would be some kind of demoronizer to translate an article from English with brain-damaged units to English with SI units.
Of course, this might require some AI and that's not exactly easy.
Heck, look at the other replies: it's not even easy to make humans think!
> I don't think it really matters what units are used, as long as they are clearly labeled.
Then why is it that nobody uses old Inca units, provided they're clearly labeled?
made out of that stuff.
Fahrenheit is just as easy to understand. Proof: Americans get it. If you, oh so superior European, have trouble, perhaps it's because you're a complete and utter moron.
Sounds like a useful material for building core catchers.
7,128 F (3942 C)... luckily we just need some jetfuel to melt that. #modernscience
Our drills melt at 8 miles. We really don't know what's beneath that, we only speculate on the mantle and the core.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Instead of hafnium, why don't they just use the whole thing and get twice the melting point?
Idiot scientists just doing it half way.
Kind of, only that the core is several thousand degrees hot, and if it burns through the bottom of the building, the whole incident gets upgraded a few steps on the INES scale.