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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
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.
With current fuels, no. However, if you can build engines with much higher melting points the options for fuels grows and you may get an engine with higher power, better fuel efficiency or both. Or you could just end up with a really expensive paper weight. That's why modern companies are so skittish about R&D.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
I am nowhere near an engineer. But maybe you could use it to cast some other alloy?
Engineers come from all walks of life, and don't usually wear signs that say "Hello, my name is engineer". You could have been near one at the grocery store, on the bus, or in line at Starbucks. So my question is, how do you *know* for certain you aren't near an engineer, right now?
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?
"Nowhere near an engineer"... so, you're riding in the caboose, then?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
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.
Interesting, but I still don't quite have the concept. How would you use it in a car?
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
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.
Some engineers are also invisible and intangible.
I mean, until proven otherwise.
The upper limit on jet engine combustion temperatures is the point at which one begins to produce unacceptable amounts of NOx. We have the fuel and pressure ratios capable of reaching this point already.
Have gnu, will travel.
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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made out of that stuff.
And many of them can be assumed to be spherical.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
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.
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.
If you could hold the heat in with a kiln.
It's all about energy. If your flame burns at 1000C, confine the heat (aka energy) so it can't cool off and the temperature will increase above 1000 degrees. The more energy you dump into the kiln, the hotter it will become regardless of how fast you dump it in. Energy radiates from the kiln at some rate, you have to dump energy into the system faster than it dissipates and the temperature will increase indefinitely.
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.
Some engineers are also invisible and intangible.
I mean, until proven otherwise.
And many of them can be assumed to be spherical.
That would be "theoretical" engineers, would it not?
- X/Y -