Yarn Spun from Nanotubes 152
jabberjaw writes "Nature is reporting that Professor Alan H Windle has spun nanotube yarn by twisting nanotubes onto spinning rods as they come out of the furnace from which they are made. Professor Windle's team used ethanol (carbon source) with ferrocene (catalyst) and thiopene (for thread assembly) to create the structure. To create the tubes a mix of the above chemicals is inserted into a furnace in a jet of hydrogen gas. However, do not get your hopes up yet, the press release also indicates that the yarn has a strength comparable to that of most modern textiles but the groups does state that there is room for improvement. Yes, for those of you wondering, there is mention of a space elevator."
next generation (Score:3, Interesting)
Expensive sweater (Score:4, Interesting)
Schrodinger (Score:0, Interesting)
How to cut a rope so strong?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Quite scary to be tied by such a rope.
What's it like? (Score:3, Interesting)
Strength isn't the only issue (Score:5, Interesting)
stronger than current polymers. The advantage may well
arise from its ability to retain its strength
at high temperatures which current threads do not.
UV resistance would be another big win.
Spinnerets are the Key (Score:3, Interesting)
Buzzwordium (Score:5, Interesting)
Carbon nanotubes are an interesting discovery, but making them in adundance is non-trivial. Forming them into useful macro structures is also not well understood, to put it mildly. I hate to break it to you, but there will be no space elevator, at least any time soon.
This irrational exuberance of science tends to hurt more than help. Becuase when someone promises the world and then doesn't deliver. It hurts the entire discipline in the way of funding cuts by politicians who feel burned for beleiving the hype. Just some perspective.
My two cents,
-Iowa
Properties of Carbontubes (Score:4, Interesting)
Whats it look like? (Score:4, Interesting)
Anybody know what a mass of nanotubes looks like? And buckeyballs? Soot, which is black, contains lots of buckeyballs I think. And diamonds are colorless. So how would the nanotube structure affect the color?
Space elevators (Score:5, Interesting)
Many proponents of certain technologies forget to take into account that hypothetical advancements required for their favorite technology will also benefit competing technologies. For example - carbon nanotube composites will make superb structural material for a high fuel fraction RLV, and it doesn't take tens of thousands of kilometers of the stuff.
Re:Stole my idea... (Score:2, Interesting)
They're essentially really sharp needles that could poke through anything they touch. Including the nucleus of cells in the body.
Re:Space Elevator and Nature (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stole my idea... (Score:4, Interesting)
They optimize them on a high-speed conveyer belt that has rows of optical sensors with hydraulically fired knifes. As the fry passes under the sensor it optimizes the fry length and fires a hydraulic piston with a rubber hinge attached to a curved blade, the speed that the piston fires at flexes the rubber hinge so that as it springs back it's speed matches belt. This prevents the fries from being fired off the belt by the knifes. It also accounts for starch build up on the system. All pistons are hot swappable. One of these machines can do all the fries for a region of the country. This is an example of precision motion control software mated to good mechanical engineering.
I think you stole the idea from Frank Herbert's Shiga wire or Arthur C. Clarck's Diamond fiber.
Probably better off with BioSteel (Score:3, Interesting)
Until we find some cheap, effective way to work with nanotubes, this BioSteel is probably the better solution. Plus, it sounds like this nanotube thread isn't as strong as BioSteel anyways.
Re:Space elevators (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, but such a cheap RLV is also not-yet-existent. Yes, I'd be pleased to see a cheap RLV, but there would be problems once we really start to use the capacity.
RLV's are loud and polluting. A space elevator has the potential to be extremely efficient and generate no air pollution.
Another poster has observed that surviving reentry is less stressful with a space elevator--there's no smacking into the atmosphere at twenty times the speed of sound. I suspect that the risk of failure of a space elevator resulting in loss of life is likely lower, though I'll freely admit that we could make engineering assumptions to push that argument either way.
You can build a space elevator for higher capacity, in principle. Bulky unaerodynamic cargoes can ride the elevator. There's only so much cargo you can put in a practical RLV; for a space elevator you just add more and thicker cables.
I bet there are economies of scale associated with using the space elevator. Suppose I want to travel from Point A to Point B through undeveloped country. As an individual, I could take my Jeep and do it. It's certainly easier than building a railroad. However, if I want to bring all my friends along, at some point my investment in Jeeps starts to get larger than my investment in rail. What if I want some steel girders or a space station module at Point B? Not only that, if I want to double my rail capacity, I don't double my cost--I just lay down a second set of tracks on the same right-of-way. I can even use the original tracks to deliver tracklaying equipment.
This might be an excellent application for a RLV--delivery of materials to assemble the first space elevator.
The skies might get crowded with lots of reusable vehicles makig frequent launches--might be an air-traffic control nightmare, and nobody wants frequent sonic booms from reentering spacecraft.
How about intersecting patches of carbon lace? (Score:2, Interesting)
How about branching networks of nanotubes? Has anyone made branching nanotubes? Tiny patches of carbon lace that intersect multiple other patches might be strong on a macro scale.