Re: nanotube composite

From: Havirrion (havirrion_at_NOblueDAMNyonderSPAM.co.uk)
Date: 06/26/04 

Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2004 23:11:11 GMT

Uncle Al wrote:
> Havirrion wrote:
>
>>http://www.nature.com/nsu/021007/021007-13.html
>>
>>This stuff was reported on some time ago yet evert attempt I have made
>>to find out more has been a dead end. The physical properties the
>>article mentions are just incredible, and I wonder about the credulity
>>of it all.
>
>
> The hot spin is continuous synthesis of nanotubes (flowing inert gas,
> organic feedstock, a little methanol, a trace of vaporized ferrocene
> as catalyst, then pyrolyze and grab growing fiber like cotton candy)
> then prepreg with aqueous poly(vinyl alcohol), spin to multi-filament
> fiber, and pyrolyze that.
>
> It works in the lab and the claimed material properties are awesome.
> The real world is commercialization. It didn't take Kevlar and
> Spectra very long to have major impacts upon steel cable and high-end
> sails. Nano-stuffs remain commercial orphans.
>
> If you can't sell it to a consortium of stupendously wealthy fanatics
> lusting after the Americas Cup/Louis Vuitton Cup, you ain't got
> nothing.
>

Sure there are niche markets and that is how a lot if this kind of stuff
crawls towards wider commercial usage. That said the hardness and
strength of this material should have lots of industrial and commercial
sector companies salivating like hungry dogs.

It is unfortunate that a lot of the nano related materials research is
not seeing much commercialization. There are a raft of novel materials
out there that fulfil genunine needs in the marketplace but for whatever
reason comerecial usage is scant to non existent