Honda Makes Nanotube Breakthrough 88
SkinnyGuy writes "Carbon nanofibers and nanotubes are the future of computers, cars, energy and more, but it won't happen until someone figures out how to make carbon nanotubes more efficiently and in formations that can deliver enough energy and functionality to offer practical solutions for real-world problems. Honda's latest breakthrough could be the first step. Of course, Intel is working on similar carbon nanotube fabrication technology. Whoever finally delivers a practical solution, it sounds like a win-win for us."
Re:Seems Wasteful (Score:5, Interesting)
You consider cheaper, more efficient power transmission, smaller, cheaper, more efficient motors, lighter, cheaper cars, etc. "unintelligent"? Ok, how about more efficient antennas for your cellphones leading to longer battery life? Surely you would consider that a Nobel-grade breakthrough!
Re:win-win (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nanotubes... (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all that isn't quite true. Nanotubes are now used as the tips of some STMs, bucky paper composites, single nanotube transistors and a few others. THe major hurdle to the widespread use of nanotubes is solely due to their high cost. They are about ~1000$/gram the last time I checked so really they'd need to be pretty special to justify that kind of cost.
Re:Seems Wasteful (Score:2, Interesting)
That thought process works to dim the interest of the story, don't you think? Implementation into all of the technology you mentioned would take years. Hence, I'm more excited to hear that they have actually achieved a level of stability with the product, but simply for conductivity seems anti-climactic. I suppose I'm more interested and impressed with Intel's intentions.
Oh, yeah, and let us not forget...lighter and cheaper cars? RECENTLY the cost of a hybrid or electric car is becoming reasonable enough to pay for itself in a decade. Just because a tech is new and amazing doesn't mean that mean that a company won't milk it for all it worth until it gets much more widespread. I'm sure Honda is going to release a Prius upgraded with nanotubes for just a few thousand dollars, all on the basis of it being lighter weight and more efficient that current models (oh, and good for society, since corporations are so altruistic). Being naive about the price of any tech made for hipsters and early-adopters seems to be an "unintelligent" point of view.
Re:Seems Wasteful (Score:4, Interesting)
Nanotubes can theoretically carry a current of 1 billion Amps/cm^2 which is over a thousand times the current at which Copper gets fried. THey are also lighter and far stronger than any other conductor we have tested. Upwards of 200x as strong as medium grade steel and 4x less dense. Not even superconductors can carry the amount of power we are talking about here as the magnetic fields created by such a current destroy the superconductivity of all known examples of superconductors well before this amount of current is reached.
Filtering? (Score:3, Interesting)
TFA speaks of filtering the semiconducting fibers from the conducting ones as if this might be a big deal. I would have thought that magnetic separation would be the obvious solution. Am I missing something?
The physical behavior of a conductor moving with respect to a magnetic field is so dramatically different than that of a non-conductor that I have to believe that a semiconductor would behave differently also.
My favorite demo of this effect is to drop a strong magnet through a section of aluminum conduit. The magnet falls normally when released next to but outside the pipe, but a strong magnet can take up to five minutes to fall through the inside. A cow magnet [wikipedia.org]in a half inch pipe is particularly effective.
Re:Nanotubes... (Score:4, Interesting)
If you can show me a shipping product with a single nanotube transistor, I'll eat my hat. STM tips are a pretty limited market. I can't find any references to commercial buckypaper composities either.
We actually have a buckyball (C60) ion gun for use with our Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer (TOF-SIMS). As far as I know, these ion guns are the only existing commercial use for buckyballs. It isn't exactly a huge market.
Fullerenes have been around for nearly 25 years now. It they had anything more than hype, they'd be commercialized by now. I'm not saying it isn't possible, but none of the press releases I've ever read about fullerenes has lead to anything more than another press release.
A perfect solution. (Score:5, Interesting)
Lets imagine for a second a future where our 'pollution' is the base building material for the majority of products constructed.
Carbon nanotubes/fibers could be the perfect sequestering medium/method for all the CO2 in the atmosphere. They have already shown to be such a useful product, we are continually finding new ways to make use of them. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that only iron has proven to be as diverse.
If mass-production ever takes off I suggest we proclaim this to be the birth of the Carbon age.
Re:Nanotubes... (Score:3, Interesting)
You could say the same about aluminum before development of the Bayer process, or titanium prior to the Kroll process. This could be the equivalent for nanotubes.
But, probably not...
Ultracapacitors (Score:2, Interesting)