Perfected nanotube tech potentially unlocks ability to 3d print anything

Alumni from MIT and Yale universities have perfected nanotube technology which could eventually allow humans to 3d-print pretty much anything we desire, including creating carbon-free fuel “out of thin air.”

"We're talking about printing matter from the air ... You could print food, fuels, building materials, and medicines from the atmosphere and soil or recycled parts"

Later this year the technology will be deployed at a desalination plant, having demonstrated the ability to desalinate seawater using the least amount of energy ever required
Source

Scientists have recently made huge progress with carbon nanotube technology. They believe that sometime in the near future, we will have 3d printers capable of producing any material we want from base materials such as dirt or even the air. As I understand it, the machine would basically rearrange atoms and molecules in order to turn one material into any other material.
It seems to me that mastery of carbon nanotube technology is one of those points where you move from one civilization type to the next, as the possibilities it looks to create are mind-boggling.

Here's an interesting note:
Know what else contains carbon nanotubes? 17th-century Damascus steel swords. And to this day, nobody knows how the steel was created.

Cool! Now retro game cases might start to look more realistic.

I'll admit, I know little to nil about this technology, but I have to ask.
How can food be created out of nothing, dirt or air?
It would have no nutritional value would it?

a reply to: trollz

Already posted...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Finally, these alchemists can change lead into gold!

Dang!

To even get close to printing everything at all is cool.

Surely not everything but likely most things.

I saw this yesterday, looking forward to the technology hope to get a barn out in the middle of nowhere and print robots to handle my farm.

Metal 3D Printing: Renaissance in Additive Manufacturing

Metal 3D Printing is undoubtedly the next big thing in the fast-moving realm of 3D printing.

Put simply, it’s a quick and effective process used to create three-dimensional metal parts from a digital file. Using 3D CAD technology, metal 3D printing techniques use binders, lasers and heated nozzles to create products that are robust and boast intricate internal features (channels, undercuts, inner tubes, internal voids). Components that wouldn’t have been imaginable a few years ago are now a reality due to the various industrial applications available for metal 3D printing today.

blog.grabcad.com...

Channels, I-Beams, I bet you could print out all the components for a house and have robots put it together.

originally posted by: chiefsmom
I'll admit, I know little to nil about this technology, but I have to ask.
How can food be created out of nothing, dirt or air?
It would have no nutritional value would it?

Thats how plants make food.. With dirt and air and it contains lots of nutritional value.

a reply to: purplemer


That is a bit oversimplified, isn't it? I mean, plants use the air, dirt, and water, to grow into what their genetics tell them to grow into to produce their fruit, veggie, grain, ect.

It just seems strange that your going to just use "Air" and make food? or just dirt?

originally posted by: trollz

Alumni from MIT and Yale universities have perfected nanotube technology which could eventually allow humans to 3d-print pretty much anything we desire, including creating carbon-free fuel “out of thin air.”

"We're talking about printing matter from the air ... You could print food, fuels, building materials, and medicines from the atmosphere and soil or recycled parts"

Later this year the technology will be deployed at a desalination plant, having demonstrated the ability to desalinate seawater using the least amount of energy ever required
Source

Scientists have recently made huge progress with carbon nanotube technology. They believe that sometime in the near future, we will have 3d printers capable of producing any material we want from base materials such as dirt or even the air. As I understand it, the machine would basically rearrange atoms and molecules in order to turn one material into any other material.
It seems to me that mastery of carbon nanotube technology is one of those points where you move from one civilization type to the next, as the possibilities it looks to create are mind-boggling.

Here's an interesting note:
Know what else contains carbon nanotubes? 17th-century Damascus steel swords. And to this day, nobody knows how the steel was created.

Somebody’s got to say it:

REPLICATORS!!!

“Tea. Earl Gray. Hot.”

originally posted by: chiefsmom
I'll admit, I know little to nil about this technology, but I have to ask.
How can food be created out of nothing, dirt or air?
It would have no nutritional value would it?

All of our foods are made from basic elements: carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, and some sulphur, plus some traces of iron, copper, phosphorus, or zinc; carbohydrates, proteins, fats and enzymes. Plants are mostly cellulose plus chlorophyll and enzymes.

Earth atmosphere is made from Nitrogen, Oxygen, Water (Hydrogen x2 and Oxygen), CO2 (Carbon + Oxygen x2). Soil contains all of these plus the trace elements. That's how plants grow - fertilizers are mostly nitrates plus trace elements.

All of that CO2, NO2 and sulphur pollutants that make smog are up for grabs.

hmm...sounds like bs...reads like bs...its bs.

We are nowhere close to coming up with the star trek's replicator. If this was a thing, it would be smashed into dust. Such tech would crumble every single industry on the planet


But its nice to dream.

RT is like a unfunny Onion

a reply to: trollz

Star Trek replicators here we come!

a reply to: filthyphilanthropist

Space travel to other stars will become possible with current tech AND this new ability.

It would entail massive generational ships, but we COULD send people to far off destinations now if this discovery is what it seems.

a reply to: chiefsmom

Plants take molecules of air and dirt and rearrange them into food on a molecular level as per their genetic instructions. 3d printers will take molecules and rearrange them at a molecular level as per there instructions.
You tell me what the difference is.

I'm gonna print me a girlfriend

a reply to: Notional

That would be changing atoms. This article claims to be able to construct molecules.

a reply to: tadaman

Well, no not yet. You would have to take an awful lot of soil with you anyway.

originally posted by: chiefsmom
I'll admit, I know little to nil about this technology, but I have to ask.
How can food be created out of nothing, dirt or air?
It would have no nutritional value would it?

Here is how:

It’s hard to imagine just how small nanotechnology is. One nanometer is a billionth of a meter, or 10-9 of a meter. Here are a few illustrative examples:

* There are 25,400,000 nanometers in an inch
* A sheet of newspaper is about 100,000 nanometers thick
* On a comparative scale, if a marble were a nanometer, then one meter would be the size of the Earth

Nanoscience and nanotechnology involve the ability to see and to control individual atoms and molecules. Everything on Earth is made up of atoms—the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the buildings and houses we live in, and our own bodies.

But something as small as an atom is impossible to see with the naked eye. In fact, it’s impossible to see with the microscopes typically used in a high school science classes. The microscopes needed to see things at the nanoscale were invented relatively recently—about 30 years ago.

It seems to me that mastery of carbon nanotube technology is one of those points where you move from one civilization type to the next, as the possibilities it looks to create are mind-boggling.

Seems that way to me to. But until nanotubes themselves can be mass-produced in abundance and inexpensively -- and in the form needed for construction materials, we're not there yet.

Basically, carbon nanotubes themselves need a small carbon footprint before we can use them as much as we'd like.