Future planes, cars may be made of `buckypaper'

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - It's called "buckypaper" and looks a lot like ordinary carbon paper, but don't be fooled by the cute name or flimsy appearance. It could revolutionize the way everything from airplanes to TVs are made.
Buckypaper is 10 times lighter but potentially 500 times stronger than steel when sheets of it are stacked and pressed together to form a composite. Unlike conventional composite materials, though, it conducts electricity like copper or silicon and disperses heat like steel or brass.

"All those things are what a lot of people in nanotechnology have been working toward as sort of Holy Grails," said Wade Adams, a scientist at Rice University.

This is seemingly a very big development. What I found to be intruiguing in the article is that apparently carbon nano tubes have been around for a while but it has been cost prohibitive to produce. The process of discovery is very interesting:

The scientific discovery that led to buckypaper virtually came from outer space.

In 1985, British scientist Harry Kroto joined researchers at Rice for an experiment to create the same conditions that exist in a star. They wanted to find out how stars, the source of all carbon in the universe, make the element that is a main building block of life.

Everything went as planned with one exception.

"There was an extra character that turned up totally unexpected," recalled Kroto, now at Florida State heading a program that encourages the study of math, science and technology in public schools. "It was a discovery out of left field."

The surprise guest was a molecule with 60 carbon atoms shaped like a soccer ball. To Kroto, it also looked like the geodesic domes promoted by Buckminster Fuller, an architect, inventor and futurist. That inspired Kroto to name the new molecule buckminsterfullerene, or "buckyballs" for short.

For their discovery of the buckyball—the third form of pure carbon to be discovered after graphite and diamonds—Kroto and his Rice colleagues, Robert Curl Jr. and Richard E. Smalley, were awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1996.

The electrical conductive nature of the material also is much more effctive at protecting equipment from electrical charges. Pretty cool.

www.breitbart.com...

ColoradoJens

Nice find. Flag and star for you! Wow, Buckypaper. I wouldnt mind seeing that in civilian commute! Imagine, having a car weighing the same as normal, but much more safer in case of a crash!

Ya I'm loving the postive benefits of nanotechnology....


Im calling something sweet like an industrial revolution with nano assembly lines would be kick ass....

Just pump out the toughest most durable materials , products would last forever...


oh wait though I think a lot of rich people wouldn't want that....
We can't have this, we purposely build in defects to have our customer coming back....porfits my boy.... Im a piece o crap.... theres no profits in a sound quality product....

I was also told it would be light as hell..... like a couch you could lift with your finger...

They better come up with a better name than buckypaper if they want the idea to sell.
At this point, I think parents would much rather put their kids in a Smart Car than they would a bucky paper car.

Me I would put mine in a much safer SUV.

Originally posted by Alxandro
They better come up with a better name than buckypaper if they want the idea to sell.
At this point, I think parents would much rather put their kids in a Smart Car than they would a bucky paper car.

Me I would put mine in a much safer SUV.

I don't know... the "Microwave oven" caught on pretty easily... and it's name suggests an oven with a tiny ripple... not exactly something you'd think of as being capable of cooking your food in seconds.

Carbon fiber... a name suggesting a cloth made of welding byproduct?

Blackberry... clearly not a name suggesting anything even remotely linked to telecommunications.


As the product progresses, so too will the public's understanding of what the name means.

reply to post by johnsky


I have not doubt it will improve as things progress.
What I'm saying is if they want to attract some serious investors, they will need to change the name to make it sound more reliable.

case in point:

Chances are you've heard about how Chevrolet had problems marketing the Chevy Nova automobile in Latin America. Since no va means "it doesn't go" in Spanish, the oft-repeated story goes, Latin American car buyers shunned the car, forcing Chevrolet to embarrassedly pull the car out of the market.

link

All it would take would be a little creativity in renaming the damn thing.
Maybe drop the "y" and call it the buckmobile or the buckster 3000 or something cool with the letter X like bux
Bucky sounds too bubble-gummish.

Originally posted by Alxandro
reply to post by johnsky

 

I have not doubt it will improve as things progress.
What I'm saying is if they want to attract some serious investors, they will need to change the name to make it sound more reliable.

case in point:

Chances are you've heard about how Chevrolet had problems marketing the Chevy Nova automobile in Latin America. Since no va means "it doesn't go" in Spanish, the oft-repeated story goes, Latin American car buyers shunned the car, forcing Chevrolet to embarrassedly pull the car out of the market.

link

All it would take would be a little creativity in renaming the damn thing.
Maybe drop the "y" and call it the buckmobile or the buckster 3000 or something cool with the letter X like bux
Bucky sounds too bubble-gummish.

Cars are currently made of what - steel, plastic, fiberglass? But interestingly, we don't call them Steelmobiles. Although that would be an awesome name.