Carbon Nanoribbon: Wrapped in Wonder
by Tim McGee, Helena, MT, USA on 08.19.05
Carbon nanotubes are the Lego set of choice for materials scientists these days. Ray Baughman's Team from the University of Texas at Dallas has developed a system that can crank out 10 meters of the ribbon every minute. The video is impressive proof of manufacturing potential, but the practical uses are almost mind boggling. Transparent, flexible, electrically conductive, thin, lightweight, and stronger then steel they can be used for everything from super thin and flexible televisions and monitors to space elevator ribbons to highly efficient solar power.
Published in this weeks Science, and covered by Nature News, this invention goes a long way to actually showing the promise of nanotechnology. We have seen the versatile nature of carbon nanotubes here on Treehugger: as a sticky substance that mimics a gecko foot, to a storage device for hydrogen fuel cells. But this is the first application which has the potential to turn into products on shelves- fast.
"Rarely is a processing advance so elegantly simple that rapid commercialization seems possible...Things move quickly if you can prove that the supply of the material is good" says Ray on his teams work.
Not only does this open up the standard ideas of flexible, and cheap electronics (as nanotubes are just carbon- one of the most plentiful of things we have these days), but developing materials on the nanolevel enables us to take advantage of 'molecular organization'. This may be a bit extending things, but as I have said before the ability to control materials at the molecular level is key to our future development of technology.
My first thoughts on electrically conductive nanotubes incorporate dye solar cell technology -enabling high efficiency solar cells at a fraction of their current cost. My mind then quickly drifts to the Space Elevator and how we may just be able to get rid of inefficient fuel burning airplane flight (not to mention space flight) - just take a solar powered crawler up the space elevator, and glide down to your destination. But that is just the beginning. ::Nature News ::Science
It would way cool if this machine worked ilke the dehumidifier/water cooler to generate the carbon nanotubes. The machine could just sit there pulling carbon out of the air like the Volvo VCC concept (http://www.supercars.net/cars/2365.html) from a couple of years ago.
Also, as noted on slashdot.org, the tensile strength of this partcular nanotube is not enough to use for a space elevator.
After reading the last sentence in your article I remembered this site. ( you might want to post it as an separate story.)
http://www.fuellessflight.com/index.htm
I like buckyballs too but my gut tells me, and some recent reports confirm, this material may not only be magic but also a demon pollutant. It is water soluble and toxic to bacteria, which means it could be toxic to other lifeforms as well. Imagine what breathing in buckballs might do to your lungs.
The environmental impact of buckyballs and other nanoparticles are an important part of releasing nanotechnology industry world wide. Primarily it is the asbestos type of incident which will pervade my thoughts as we enter into this territory- it will probably not be the traditional use of the material that will cause disease, but when we -break it, burn it, smash it, etc.. will the nanoparticles which are inherently a part of the system disassemble? I think for most nanotechnology the key is their assembly-forming covalent bonds creating a larger structure. This kind of structure -once large enough to be useful should also be nearly impossible to break into smaller pieces...but we should check to make sure.
Is there any specific information on PV efficiencies??
Has work been done on this to make PV yet?
in reply to the health concerns, i just read a piece by the DOD about a study that they wanted to do because of the implications of these materials being small enough to pass through membranes. The potential warfare implications are something also to be considered.
As for elevators to space etc. You have to start thinking outside of the box. Dont think along normal lines.. think of a ribbon as you see in this article.. or think of the ability of helium to travel into space and start combining the unique characteristics.
At the university of Kentucky they have created a filter out of MWNT(multiwalled nanotubes)that can be used on a coal plant to remove the CO2 from the flue gas exhaust. That amazes me! Along with what someone else posted here.. i start to think that the potential exists to begin actually removing CO2 from the atmosphere.. but also consider the possibility for
Ozone repair and rehab. Now we are talking.. lets
deal with the issues here first. -bs
I was unable to find the original source of this article. Anyone able to drop a link to it?
My current imagining is that this ribbon is an excellent example of rapidly manufacturing nanotubes, but that the nanotubes are inferior quality to most lab-spec stuff.
So just what are the properties of this stuff?
Yes, the environmental impact of nanotubes is of grave concern. I heard something about a lab dumping some buckyballs (not tubes) into a river, and the fish died en-mass from it. Something about permeability, and concentrating in tissue.
This is more likely dangerous than not, but so incredibly useful that we will have to find ways to work around it and safely contain it and destroy it when we want to.
Be aware.