Electrically Conductive Cement

zero_offset writes "The Tokyo Institute of Technology has announced a process for creating an inexpensive, nearly transparent, electrically conductive alumina cement. The conductivity is comparable to metal, and the transparency should be adequate for use in display panels. The process relies upon commonplace and inexpensive metals compared to the rare metals such as iridium currently used in display panels."

Does anybody else remember conductive LEGOs?

[Short Circuit]

Does anybody else remember the conductive LEGOs introduced with the 9V system? It just seems to me that this, if cheap enough, might be useful in construction environments where wire is difficult or impractical to route.

Depending on its conductivity, it might even be useful for home and industrial high-current applications.

Granted, electrical wiring is a pretty mature field, but I'm sure that something like this opens up possibilities.

Re:It's about time!

[quixote9]

Be nice if it was just the first step to implementing all that stuff. You know: no poverty, competent government, no wars (except with Klingons and such, of course).

Re:Does anybody else remember conductive LEGOs?

[daeg]

One step further: combined with recent advances toward nearly transparent, thin solar cells for covering, well, everything. Windows and sides of buildings would be first, and given enough durability, sidewalks, cars, roofs, and the Chines could all become miniature power plants.

keep you eyes on the road.

[Original Replica]

It could have some interesting applications as a road surface. traffic alerts and stop lights being part of the road itself.

cheaper tvs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Forgive my ignorance, but most of the comments only refer to large/heavy structures using this material. But, the article seems like it's saying that this could be used to replace Indium in televisions. Can this not possibly lead to cheaper and more efficient televisions or am I missing something? Can this also not be useful in making cheaper displays in general?

Re:It's about time!

[InsertCleverUsername]

Nothing brings people together like a common enemy, so for us to have no more wars here on Earth, the most likely catalyst would be war with an alien species.

True, but it would have to be a really good hoax. Otherwise it's not likely we'd have a prayer against aggressive aliens. As Sagan and many others would point out, a space-faring civilization is going to be much older and more technologically advanced than us. Reminds me of that old saying, "don't bring a knife to an phaser fight."

Re:Let's see, here...

[fabs64]

actually that sounds like a pretty brilliant way of printing simple "wires" on things.

Re:Cement != concrete

[lessthan]

Umm... I hunted "alumina cement" [wikipedia.org] down on Wikipedia, which states : Applications - in construction concretes, rapid strength development is achieved, even at low temperatures (truncated for clarity) Is that not the correct entry?

Re:Environmetally-friendly?

[Chris Pimlott]

A more abundant material will occur naturally in greater concentrations, which reduces the amount of effort to retrieve and process a high-grade sample. For example, in an area where gold is plentiful, you may be able to find a large quantities of gold just by hand-panning in a stream. In an area where good is scare, you may have to sift through entire mountains to extract the same amount. The latter takes much more energy and investiment and has a much higher toll on the environment than the former.

Re:Cement != concrete

[mrchaotica]

Coincidentally, I just learned tonight that the black sludge that gets mixed with sand and aggregate to make asphalt is called 'asphalt cement'.

Likewise, the end result after that mixing is properly called "asphalt concrete," not just "asphalt."