Buckypaper — Out of the Lab, Into the Market

doomsdaywire writes "Buckypaper isn't exactly news to anyone here. However, this article quotes Ben Wang, director of Florida State's High-Performance Materials Institute, saying, 'Our plan is perhaps in the next 12 months we'll begin maybe to have some commercial products.' The article continues: '"If this thing goes into production, this very well could be a very, very game-changing or revolutionary technology to the aerospace business," said Les Kramer, chief technologist for Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, which is helping fund the Florida State research. ... The long-range goal is to build planes, automobiles and other things with buckypaper composites. The military also is looking at it for use in armor plating and stealth technology.'"

lowest form of paper.

[Ostracus]

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gY3jWGn-XBc_Hu-NXj5YYubxQlPAD93SBGCO0 [google.com]

Re:very informative article

[JustinOpinion]

According to the article, buckypaper "conducts electricity like copper or silicon." So it's either a conductor or an insulator. The article smells like roses or shit.

Actually, carbon nanotubes [wikipedia.org] can be either metallic or semiconducting, depending on the type. (Different "types" have a different arrangement of the graphene hexagons with respect to the tube axis: zigzag, armchair, or chiral.) So it is in fact correct to say that carbon nanotubes are either conductors or semiconductors.

Buckypaper [wikipedia.org] is made of nanotubes, so it will be conducting or semiconducting depending on its composition. Most nanotube production techniques create a mixture of tube types, so most samples of buckypaper will be a mixture of metallic and semiconducting components. The final electrical properties will then of course depend on the relative inclusion of the various types. (As well as other things, like alignment of the tubes, and interactions or bridging between tubes.) This is a virtue of buckypaper, in fact, since (in principle) we can tune the electrical properties as required for a particular application (while maintaining nearly the same mechanical performance).

(I agree that the article is poorly worded. The sentence is technically correct, but that's probably an accident.)

Re:Oh wonderful

[JustinOpinion]

Actually it may be that we've learned our lesson. Even though nanotechnology is still a very nascent field, serious efforts are already underway to measure the health effects and safety concerns for these kinds of materials. For instance, in the United States, NIOSH (a branch of the CDC tasked with evaluating work-related risks) has an effort underway to quantify the effects of nano-materials on people (link [cdc.gov]). There are similar efforts worldwide for this "NanoEHS" issue (e.g. this [nanoehsalliance.org]).

Only time will tell, of course. But as someone working in the broad field of "nano", I can say that health, safety, and environmental impact are already a part of our research plans. There are considerable efforts to make sure we understand the impact of these materials before sending them to market. Also, since we are the ones working with these materials daily, we are certainly concerned with any possible toxicity.

Mistakes may still be made (e.g. a product released ends up having an unforeseen interaction with some other material/drug/etc.), but presently it seems that agencies are being appropriately proactive in terms of assessing risk before commercialization is even a serious consideration.

Re:lowest form of joke

[lysergic.acid]

potential applications of buckypaper listed on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:

• If exposed to an electric charge, buckypaper could be used to illuminate computer and television screens. It could be more energy-efficient, lighter, and could allow for a more uniform level of brightness than current cathode ray tube (CRT) and liquid crystal display (LCD) technology.
• Since carbon nanotubes are one of the most thermally conductive materials known, buckypaper lends itself to the development of heat sinks that would allow computers and other electronic equipment to disperse heat more efficiently than is currently possible. This, in turn, could lead to even greater advances in electronic miniaturization.
• Because carbon nanotubes have an unusually high current-carrying capacity, a buckypaper film could be applied to the exteriors of airplanes. Lightning strikes then could flow around the plane and dissipate without causing damage.
• Films also could protect electronic circuits and devices within airplanes from electromagnetic interference, which can damage equipment and alter settings. Similarly, such films could allow military aircraft to shield their electromagnetic "signatures", which can be detected via radar.
• Buckypaper could act as a filter membrane to trap microparticles in air or fluid. Because the nanotubes in buckypaper are insoluble and can be functionalized with a variety of functional groups, they can selectively remove compounds or can act as a sensor.
• Produced in high enough quantities and at an economically viable price, buckypaper composites could serve as an effective armor plating.
• Buckypaper can be used to grow biological tissue, such as nerve cells. Buckypaper can be electrified or functionalized to encourage growth of specific types of cells.
• The Poisson's ratio for carbon nanotube buckypaper can be controlled and has exhibited auxetic behaviour, capable of use as artificial muscles.

seems to me it would be easier to produce buckypaper in the quantities required for use as a new type of electronic display or chemical filter than it would be to build an entire plane out of it.

Re:Oh wonderful

[sexconker]

You mean the stuff that was damaging the Peregrine Falcon's eggs, and was later banned, only to have us find out that the eggs became even softer AFTER the ban? The eggs were soft because of PCB.

Bird populations were INCREASING before the ban, and decreased right after the ban.

DDT does not build up in animal tissue.

DDT is not harmful to humans.

DDT would save tons of lives.

Re:Another DDT?

[frieko]

It's not harmless, nor does the article you linked suggest that. What it says is the WHO has decided it's harmless to people and that its benefits justify all the dead birds.