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| Science & Technology |
| Stronger Than Steel, Harder Than Diamonds |
| 2005-10-21 |
| Working with a material 10 times lighter than steel - but 250 times stronger - would be a dream come true for any engineer. If this material also had amazing properties that made it highly conductive of heat and electricity, it would start to sound like something out of a science fiction novel. Yet one Florida State University research group, the Florida Advanced Center for Composite Technologies (FAC2T), is working to develop real-world applications for just such a material. Ben Wang, a professor of industrial engineering at the Florida A&M University-FSU College of Engineering in Tallahassee, Fla. , serves as director of FAC2T, which works to develop new, high-performance composite materials, as well as technologies for producing them. Wang is widely acknowledged as a pioneer in the growing field of nano-materials science. His main area of research, involving an extraordinary material known as "buckypaper," has shown promise in a variety of applications, including the development of aerospace structures, the production of more-effective body armor and armored vehicles, and the construction of next-generation computer displays. The U.S. military has shown a keen interest in the military applications of Wang's research; in fact, the Army Research Lab recently awarded FAC2T a $2.5-million grant, while the Air Force Office of Scientific Research awarded $1.2 million. "At FAC2T, our objective is to push the envelope to find out just how strong of a composite material we can make using buckypaper," Wang said. "In addition, we're focused on developing processes that will allow it to be mass-produced cheaply." Buckypaper is made from carbon nanotubes -- amazingly strong fibers about 1/50,000th the diameter of a human hair that were first developed in the early 1990s. Buckypaper owes its name to Buckminsterfullerene, or Carbon 60 -- a type of carbon molecule whose powerful atomic bonds make it twice as hard as a diamond. Sir Harold Kroto, now a professor and scientist with FSU's department of chemistry and biochemistry, and two other scientists shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery of Buckminsterfullerene, nicknamed "buckyballs" for the molecules' spherical shape. Their discovery has led to a revolution in the fields of chemistry and materials science -- and directly contributed to the development of buckypaper. Among the possible uses for buckypaper that are being researched at FAC2T: If exposed to an electric charge, buckypaper could be used to illuminate computer and television screens. It would be more energy-efficient, lighter, and would allow for a more uniform level of brightness than current cathode ray tube (CRT) and liquid crystal display (LCD) technology. As one of the most thermally conductive materials known, buckypaper lends itself to the development of heat sinks that would allow computers and other electronic equipment to disperse heat more efficiently than is currently possible. This, in turn, could lead to even greater advances in electronic miniaturization. Because it has an unusually high current-carrying capacity, a film made from buckypaper could be applied to the exteriors of airplanes. Lightning strikes then would flow around the plane and dissipate without causing damage. Films also could protect electronic circuits and devices within airplanes from electromagnetic interference, which can damage equipment and alter settings. Similarly, such films could allow military aircraft to shield their electromagnetic "signatures," which can be detected via radar. FAC2T "is at the very forefront of a technological revolution that will dramatically change the way items all around us are produced," said Kirby Kemper, FSU's vice president for Research. "The group of faculty, staff, students and post-docs in this center have been visionary in their ability to recognize the tremendous potential of nanotechnology. The potential applications are mind-boggling." |
| Posted by:DanNY |
| #6 America's pre-emminence in materials science technology, quite simply, whips @ss. Between MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems), DLC (Diamond-Like Coatings) and nanotube based composites, we are headed into a golden era of structural and mechanical innovation. I firmly believe we still have the ability (for the next few decades) to reverse the last century of unknowing (and knowing) environmental rape. Imagine a large (inert gas environment) swimming-pool sized tank of nano-robotic dissasembly devices that are able to deconstruct materials on an atomic or moleculer level. Dump in a circuit board, an old couch or an entire refrigerator, it matters not, and collect the component elemental materials at the tank's outlet. Were I Bill Gates, I would buy up every single landfill in the world and merely await the nano-disassembly technology to turn each of these dumps into literal goldmines. At one point, before strict EPA enforcement, Palo Alto's sewage sludge contained enough gold (from IC fabrication and PCB contact etching) to make its reclamation rather profitable. The same allpies to all of our landfills. They represent tremendous lodes of pre-refined materials that merely need to undergo separation once again. The space elevator, room temperature superconductors, palmtop supercomputers and so much more await us, if only we have enough brains to avoid outsourcing the skills to create them. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2005-10-21 20:09 |
| #5 Superior FSU Press Release. Note that it's all could, might, in a few years. On the other hand the U of Florida has increased egg production in this years hen brood by 3.2% with only a 2.23% increase in feed input. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-10-21 19:18 |
| #4 cooooool |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-10-21 15:23 |
| #3 Are we getting to the Diamond Age now? ObConspiracyNote: Isn't Ben Wang afraid of getting his door kicked in by the steel industry? As one of the most thermally conductive materials known, buckypaper lends itself to the development of heat sinks that would allow computers and other electronic equipment to disperse heat more efficiently than is currently possible.Or maybe a hoard of overclockers? |
| Posted by: eLarson 2005-10-21 13:34 |
| #2 Buckypaper and transparent aluminum. What tech level are we at now? |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-10-21 12:41 |
| #1 Way cool!! |
| Posted by: AlanC 2005-10-21 09:21 |