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.

What's the temperature of molten lava?

[pecosdave]

I want to make a boiling chamber out of this stuff for electrical generation.....

Re:

[Inferno Vulpix]

700-1000C

Re:

[pecosdave]

Now THIS would be interesting.

Think about it, complete a Dyson's Sphere of this stuff around the sun, in time it is likely to melt a hole in it or blow out a side. When the side blows out the sun is doing what? Creating pressure in the remainder of the cylinder. Assuming we have the technology to pull this off I'm going to assume we have the technology to position the hole as we desire - a rocket propelled steerable solar system. Sure there would be planets freezing during the covered times, until they'

Re:What's the temperature of molten lava?

[shess]

a rocket propelled steerable solar system

Unfortunately you're propelling the shell, not the star.

Re:

[lgw]

It can work if you do it right [wikipedia.org] (the gravitational attraction of the shell drags the star along). But you don't need a high-temp shell for that, you need a whacking great mirror.

Re:

[the_other_chewey]

(the gravitational attraction of the shell drags the star along)

The gravitational attraction by a spherical shell is zero at every point inside the shell
(assuming uniform density of the shell material, of course).

So an asymmetry in the construction is not optional.

Re:

[pecosdave]

Why not? Vary the density and even the shape of the construction to simulate a spherical gravitational force with the hole in place. The basics of the idea [sheldonbrown.com] aren't exactly new. It's sort of like the "stepped" starting line on an elliptical race track.

Re:

[Keybounce]

You want to stick a candle that burns at both ends into the sun.

Aim at another sun.

Someone want to link the Schlock Mercenary strip where a bunch of idiot AI's steered a gas giant into another gas giant by doing this?

Re:

[Applehu Akbar]

" a rocket propelled steerable solar system."

Have fun filing an environmental impact statement for that thing. It would contain so much paper that for the first time, the environmental impact statement would require a second environmental impact statement, for itself.

Re:

[p0p0]

It's environmental impact statements all the way down.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Damnit! You just leaked the plot of The Kingsman 2!

Re:

[davester666]

That's not a "chamber". The correct name is "Dyson Sphere".

Re:

[Plazmid]

This has been done before. Back in the 1980s people were able to drill into a pond of molten lava for some distance and boil water with it:
https://books.google.com/books... [google.com]

The interesting thing about doing such a thing that the high temperature is half the problem, the other one is that molten magma is highly corrosive.

Make the stuff

[gurps_npc]

Then publicize. Don't dream up a vaporware material and talk about that to the press.

Re:

[Whiternoise]

I think you meant publish, publicising is exactly what they're doing! ;)

Re:Make the stuff

[godrik]

Yeah right slashdot! Stop giving us hope for new fancy material with potential application in engineering! We only care about politics and social issues! This is slashdot, not a geek news website!

hey, if you don't have to test it...

[swschrad]

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.

Re:

[wonkey_monkey]

Don't dream up a vaporware material

I see what you didn't know you did there.

Re:

[tinkerton]

Don't dream up a vaporware material

nono, it's about melting point, not sublimation.

Re:

[necro81]

The purpose of the investigation was really the atomic-level computer simulation. Specifically, they were investigating whether they could properly simulate the entropy levels of an alloy in the solid and liquid phases, and the heat of fusion required to melt the substance, then extrapolate the melting point from that data. Ultimately, finding a material with a record-high melting point was the challenge used to develop the computation, not an end to itself.

That said, now that they've identified the al

Re:

[parkinglot777]

Then publicize. Don't dream up a vaporware material and talk about that to the press.

No, need to patent it first!

Re:Melting is for cows.

[rubycodez]

You keep milking that cheesy cow fetish whey too much.

Re:Applications?

[TheReaperD]

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.

Re:

[PPH]

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.

Re:

[sysrammer]

Interesting, but I still don't quite have the concept. How would you use it in a car?

Re:

[godrik]

I am nowhere near an engineer. But maybe you could use it to cast some other alloy?

Re:Applications?

[rogoshen1]

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?

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[cfalcon]

Some engineers are also invisible and intangible.

I mean, until proven otherwise.

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[wonkey_monkey]

And many of them can be assumed to be spherical.

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[murkwood7]

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?

Re:Applications?

[Locke2005]

"Nowhere near an engineer"... so, you're riding in the caboose, then?

Incandescant lights?

[calidoscope]

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).

Re:

[maestroX]

thanks, very interesting, led me to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Probably not useful

[dj245]

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.

Re:Probably not useful

[willworkforbeer]

Hafnium is about a dollar / gram. Nitrogen and carbon are plentiful and relatively cheap. Is this dramatically more expensive than current high temp materials?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

4600lbs of this material would cost, at a price of $1/gram, a good 2.1 million dollars. Compared to, what I can only estimate, is maybe at max $100,000 of current 422 stainless steel.

Re:Probably not useful

[EmperorArthur]

Hafnium is about a dollar / gram. Nitrogen and carbon are plentiful and relatively cheap. Is this dramatically more expensive than current high temp materials?

442 stainless steel is US $1500.00 / Ton from Alibaba. Assuming metric, that works out to $1.5/kg, or $0.0015/g.
Plus that $1/g is just for the raw Hafnium. Alloys like the one proposed here tend to be expensive, time consuming, and finicky to get right.

Then you get into the fact that producing Hafnium leaves pure Zirconium. Which is typically used as cladding for nuclear fuel rods. Something that a fair portion of the world would freak out about, because anything that's good for nuclear must be bad. Plus there's this gem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[DerekLyons]

Rhenium, also used in turbine blades, goes for about $2500/kg... so, $1/gram for hafnium doesn't seem like much at all.

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[BitZtream]

leaves pure Zirconium. Which is typically used as cladding for nuclear fuel rods. Something that a fair portion of the world would freak out about, because anything that's good for nuclear must be bad. Plus there's this gem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ [wikipedia.org]...

Well, they should get to the freaking out part because Zirconium isn't exactly uncommon or difficult to produce. Its a by product of all sorts of mining processes and fairly common within the Earths crust.

And if you want to throw prices out there, $900/ton for Zirconium makes it cheaper than stainless, so if anyone was going to freak out about it ... they would have.

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[EmperorArthur]

Honestly the freaking out thing isn't that bad, but the issue isn't Zirconium in general. For most applications, when they use Zirconium they don't bother to extract the Hafnium. It has most of the same properties, and it's expensive to remove. It just happens to be that one of the main applications that requires pure Zirconium involves the word nuclear. Which, is something no politician wants to touch with a ten foot pole.

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[dargaud]

Plus there's this gem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

The possibility to manipulate gamma ray coherence, even to a small degree, would be interesting

You don't say... A friggin' gamma ray laser and scientists aren't jumping on it like maggots on peanut butter ?!?

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[Locke2005]

Magnetic containment vessels, just like they use for fusion reactors? Not sure about the vacuum requirements, but I agree, manufacturing anything with this alloy would be ridiculously expensive, perhaps even more expensive than using diamond vapor deposition.

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[blackanvil]

Crucible 422 steel is a high alloy steel, which while expensive, looks like it should sell for about the same as some of the high-end knife steels, which go for about $.06/gm retail. Even if the price didn't go up with demand, which is practically an axiom of economics, that's a pretty significant difference. We'd probably switch to titanium or zirconium alloys first, or even tungsten, they all have very high melting points, plus have known reserves and stockpiles, and are relatively common, and while more

Re:

[tinkerton]

A bit expensive to start making filaments for incandescent bulbs out of it then . Pity.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

In the combustion chamber it is all about how hot you can get the hotter the more efficient the engine (at a close approximation). Superalloys are the norm now, and the engines already routinely operate at very close to the melting point of the blade material. To achieve this effective cooling design and incredibly sophisticated metallurgy are used.

An alloy that is significantly higher in melting point is of interest.

Re:Probably not useful

[Plazmid]

Current jet turbine blades(at least the first stage ones) are made of some of the most exotic materials we know of using some pretty expensive manufacturing processes. First stage jet turbine blades are almost always made of single crystalline super alloy. Oh and they're hollow, so they have to be made from a crazy investment mold. Oh and tiny holes have to be EDM'd into them.

It's a pretty expensive to make them, but it's worth it. All this crazy manufacturing is to done so that jet turbines can burn hotter, so that by Carnot they're more efficient. Even small changes in efficiency can be worth millions of dollars in fuel savings.

So as long as this material isn't as hard to process as ceramics(and it exists), it will probably find some use in a jet engine.

Re:Probably not useful

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Those blades also have exotic coatings and actually operate at a temperature above the melting point of the metal in them. A couple of weeks ago I heard the BBC Elements program on nickel [bbc.co.uk] and they were bringing up its use in jet engines. Jet turbines use the vast majority of the very limited supply (about 70% of 40 tons) of rhenium produced each year and it is one of the most expensive metals so I doubt the cost is an issue.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Most current single crystal alloy development is focused on the elimination of Hf because of cost and difficulty in maintaining consistent supply. The other very expensive raw material we use is Platinum for oxidation/corrosion coatings. There's also significant focus into reducing and eliminating platinum use. Pratt & Whitney got away from Platinum coating years ago. GE and Rolls still use a lot of platinum but are working on reducing the amount.

Raw material cost is a significant part of gas turbine ai

Re:Probably not useful

[TimothyDavis]

You could always use it to make a smelting crucible to melt tantalum hafnium carbide into.

:)

Re:

[Threni]

So, a hypothetical argument against a hypothetical substance. My simulations suggest it's too close to call.

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[weav]

The "Workable" (as in bendable, malleable, etc) part is a big question... how in heck would you work this stuff? If the melting point is over 4000C, what does it take to make it mushy enough to work?

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[Locke2005]

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.

Re:

[ChrisMaple]

It's 2015, folks. You lost.

Evidently not, TFA used glorious Fahrenheit.

Re:

[Dog-Cow]

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.

Practical concerns

[Locke2005]

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.

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[thinkwaitfast]

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.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I'd love to have a hat

[tgibson]

made out of that stuff.

Core catcher

[Ihlosi]

Sounds like a useful material for building core catchers.

Re:

[RockDoctor]

Core catchers? As in the jamming sleeve that stops your core from sliding out of the bottom of the core barrel, after you've cut it?

I've seen dozens of them when I've been catching core (and I just had the lovely news that I'll probably be catching my next series of cores in breathing apparatus. Oh joy!), but I've never seen one that had significant signs of heat damage.

What sort of coring do you do that burns out catchers?

Nuclear reactor cores

[Ihlosi]

Core catchers? As in the jamming sleeve that stops your core from sliding out of the bottom of the core barrel, after you've cut it?

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.

Re:

[RockDoctor]

Ah, a rather different sort of core. For catching yours, you'll probably need a bit more than breathing apparatus.

But hang on a few seconds - your cores are already a happening event, so what have you got to achieve? Stop it going anywhere ; stop any nuclear reactions ; minimise venting of volatiles ; cool it down. For stopping the nuclear reactions, you need either boron by the tonne or cadmium (and of the two, cadmium is a poisonous heavy metal and boron a bio-not-particularly-nasty ; easy choice) ; IIRC

Perhaps this can get us further down?

[Thing 1]

Our drills melt at 8 miles. We really don't know what's beneath that, we only speculate on the mantle and the core.

Re:

[thinkwaitfast]

Turtles

Re:

[Locke2005]

... all the way down!

Re:

[Keybounce]

No, if you did deeper, you'll find the horrors that Jon Pertwee's Doctor was trying to save us from, by stopping the crust penetrating drill.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[RockDoctor]

Do you think that is what stops us from drilling deeper? I always thought that the biggest problem was the drill strings. After all, a working bit only gets above 150 degrees (Centigrade, of course) if you've fucked your pumps and have a crack head on the brake.