Future Files:Nanotech Breakthrough Will Revolutionize Material Science
Posted On: 20 August 2005 By: Jay Oatway Filed Under: Future-Stuff-That-Goes-Ping | One Word: "Plastics" | Swimming in GreyGoo
While nanotech gets a lot of hype, it has done little thus far to deserve it. However, according to the journal Science, the University of Texas and Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization report the creation of industry-ready sheets of materials made from nanotubes. [via USATODAY]
"This is fundamentally a new material," says team leader Ray Baughman of the University of Texas at Dallas in Richardson.
� Self-supporting, transparent and stronger than steel or high-strength plastics, the sheets are flexible and can be heated to emit light.� A square mile of the thinnest sheets, about 2-millionths-of-an-inch thick, would weigh only about 170 pounds. � In lab tests, the sheets demonstrated solar cell capabilities, using sunlight to produce electricity.
The team has developed an automated process that produced 2 �-inch-wide strips of nanotubes at a rate of about 47 feet per minute.We can expect to continue to see amazing applications for this technology, mostly in the form of prototypes, over the next couple of years. As soon as it becomes cost, it will be everywhere In other nano-news:
- Carbon Nanotubes Stickier Than Gecko Foot-Hairs
Gecko lizards, which can climb any vertical surface and hang from a ceiling with one toe, have foot-hairs which allow them to strongly adhere to any type and shape of surface. Now, according to this short news release from the National Science Foundation, researchers from the University of Akron, Ohio, have developed synthetic hairs from multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNT) that have adhesion forces 200 times higher than those observed with gecko foot-hairs
The Place: Singapore. The People: Government funded bioengineers and nanotechnologists. The Product: A battery full of pee. While this sounds a little nauseating, its not about powering your car with your bodily fluids. The battery is meant to test for kidney problems, diabetes, and pregnancy. Urine activates a cathode that emits approximately 1.5 volts of electricity.
- Nanotech simulation tool to help merge molecules with silicon electronics
Scientists are working on techniques for creating future computers, sensors and other devices that use molecules, such as proteins and DNA, instead of conventional electronic components.
-Precision Agriculture - Nanotech Methods Used, Such as �Smart Dust�, Smart Fields� and Nanosensors
�Precision farming,� also known as site-specific management, describes a bundle of new information technologies applied to the management of large-scale, commercial agriculture. Precision farming technologies include, for example: personal computers, satellite-positioning systems, geographic information systems, automated machine guidance, remote sensing devices and telecommunications.
The future is being grown in a lab.
