Buckypaper — Out of the Lab, Into the Market 125
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.'"
already on the market (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want, you can get nanotubes (in multiple forms, including buckypaper) from Unidym [unidym.com]. This is the company which was founded by Richard Smalley. They've spent the last decade basically buying up patents and companies working with carbon nanotubes (in addition to doing their own research). If the Florida State guys have anything which isn't already covered by a Unidym patent, they'll just get bought up, or brought in, or something like that. Unidym seems to like collecting academic research partners.
Re:very informative article (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh wonderful (Score:3, Insightful)
Fire wasn't regulated either, at it could burn down whole forests!
Re:Always the same (Score:5, Insightful)
In the larger view, did we ever? Two things have spurred most advances in human history... War and sex. Of the two, war has been the dominant force for the large bulk of it. Even vaccines have war uses. If your army is immune to some biological agent and your enemy's is not, you can then use that agent as a weapon (unless you're playing by some arbitrary set of rules such as the Geneva Conventions - Note: I make no claim as to whether the GCs are positive or negative, but they are pretty arbitrary.). Even vaccines for chronic diseases such as polio help one's army by increasing the numbers of able-bodied workers and soldiers and decreasing the numbers of those who need support.
So what if it is developed for military purposes? It will trickle to the private sector soon enough, just as GPS, the Internet, and carbon-fiber composites have.
Re:Oh wonderful (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh wonderful (Score:4, Insightful)
So we should all just squat in the mud until the sun goes out, living in grass huts and eating windfalls (but only in the manner of our grandfathers: Don't you dare do anything new.)
If you believe that carbon nanotubes are dangerous get some (they are available for sale) and demonstrate their hazardous nature in controlled experiments. BTW buckyballs and carbon nanotubes occur naturally in soot. You might want to look into outlawing fire.
Another DDT? (Score:5, Insightful)
This could turn into another DDT
If by "another DDT", you mean, "another intergovernmental ban on a harmless product with great potential [bbc.co.uk] due to pressure from environmental hysteria, then I agree with you.
Re:Oh wonderful (Score:3, Insightful)
While it is true that it is illegal to set other people's property on fire without their permission, I don't need a license to light up my barbecue, turn on my furnace, or use my acetylene torch (and the latter, correctly adjusted, can generate quite a few buckyballs and nanotubes).
Re:Another DDT? (Score:2, Insightful)
Harmless? That article refers to INDOOR USE... not the indiscriminate spraying that happened decades ago. DDT has its uses, but it is hardly harmless.
Re:Oh wonderful (Score:3, Insightful)
This stuff is great but it needs to be carefully regulated so we don't end up with an asbestosis-like problem down the road.
Government regulation is a good thing, when it comes to things like OSHA and the FDA. I don't think that the capitalist free market will put worker safety first when it comes to manufacturing a hazardous product (Bhopal, anyone), so its up to our governments to protect us from overzealous exploitation of wonderful new things.
Maybe nanotubes are not hazardous, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.
Re:Another DDT? (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is it?
Uh.. Both. DDT is "not harmless" because it harms birds. DDT is "harmless to people" because it is... harmless to people. (practically)
What you're not realizing is that anything can be harmful, even water
I'm fully aware that water can be harmful. But thanks for insulting my intelligence.
everything can be useful in the right dose.
So I should start taking asbestos supplements? What's the useful dose?
Re:Oh wonderful (Score:3, Insightful)
One of he tenants of modern science is considering consequences instead of embracing every seeming discovery as immediately applicable as a solution.
No... Considering the consequences is _not_ part of the scientific method.
While considering the consequences is a vital step. Consequences falls under the category of value judgments, and are part of the political method.
It is vital that politics be kept out of the scientific method. If we allow the scientific method to be polluted by politics, Science will not be able to help us solve problems. Look at what happened to Mr Galileo Galilei in the era when politics controlled science.
Re:Oh wonderful (Score:1, Insightful)
"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?"
DDT and its byproducts persist in the environment for *years*, and they would persist in the fatty tissues of any falcon for the rest of their lives, continuing to affect egg shell thickness long after it stopped getting introduced into the environment and their food. A lag between a ban on the use of DDT and the return of peregrine falcon eggshell thickness is entirely expected. (Also, the ban occurred in the U.S. initially, but DDT was still being used in Mexico where many of the birds winter -- so they were still getting exposed).
While it is true that careful and targeted use of DDT to protect humans from malaria can save lives, it is also true that widespread use did seriously affect peregrine falcon, bald eagle, and several other bird populations. In parts of the world with heavy DDT use they almost went extinct (while populations elsewhere were unaffected). Strangely enough, these populations have recovered subsequent to the ban. There is a strong negative correlation between eggshell thickness and DDT/DDE concentrations. It has taken decades to improve because the stuff is so persistent in the environment and in animal tissues.
I wouldn't be surprised if PCBs and other organochlorines are an issue too, but to discount the effect of DDT/DDE is to ignore an awful lot of evidence. The introduction to this paper [springerlink.com] provides some of the background (the first page is accessible for free). To suggest that there's no connection to DDT/DDE is pretty ridiculous.
The whole point is: we don't HAVE to kill off whole other species in the process of saving humans if we use it properly (i.e. sparingly and carefully targeted).