New Form of Carbon Can Put a Dent in a Diamond

As is reported by Science Daily:

www.sciencedaily.com...

ScienceDaily (Aug. 16, 2012) — A team of scientists led by Carnegie's Lin Wang has observed a new form of very hard carbon clusters, which are unusual in their mix of crystalline and disordered structure. The material is capable of indenting diamond. This finding has potential applications for a range of mechanical, electronic, and electrochemical uses.

As we continue to find and produce new materials, I wonder if they will first be used for peaceful purposes or if we see this stuff applied to new wweapons.
(This was a rethorical question, as this will no doubt bring new possibilities to weapons).

Possible applications I can see so far:

Mechanical:
- new armor thats more resistant to penetration and blasts
- new projectiles that replace current penetrators made of tungsten or depleted uranium
- new outher shells for Aircraft to allow for higher manouverability

Electronic:
- new, more robust guiding systems for missiles so they can achieve higher speed or manouverability.

I have not yet found out about electrochemical uses, could anyone explain?

reply to post by Swordbeast


You cynic!

Reminds me of this

Hypersonic jet Waverider fails Mach 6 test

The US Air Force has said an attempt to fly its hypersonic jet Waverider at Mach 6 (3,600mph; 5795km/h) failed. The unmanned aircraft had been designed to fly at six times the speed of sound after being dropped from a B-52 bomber.

Could be used for a wonderful new faster transport system. But instead:

The Pentagon - which helped fund the project - has been testing hypersonic technologies in an effort to develop faster missiles.

Killing obvious takes too long - we need quicker death!!! As an afterthough:

It has also been suggested the research could eventually help build a commercial plane with the promise of London to New York trips taking as little as an hour, or Tokyo to Paris journeys slightly more than double that time.

reply to post by Swordbeast


Electro-chemical?

It'd be nice to find something that could serve dual purpose optical & electronic for a new breed of hybridized electronics systems using the best of both worlds while retaining low heat.

Cool find.

Originally posted by Swordbeast
Possible applications I can see so far:

Mechanical:
- new armor thats more resistant to penetration and blasts
- new projectiles that replace current penetrators made of tungsten or depleted uranium
- new outher shells for Aircraft to allow for higher manouverability

Not necessarily. Sometimes harder materials are more brittle, so hardness by itself doesn't necessarily lend itself to these applications. Something like a better cutting tool for diamonds is what occurs to me.

Electronic:
- new, more robust guiding systems for missiles so they can achieve higher speed or manouverability.

I have no idea how you came up with that?

I have not yet found out about electrochemical uses, could anyone explain?

Since the researchers know more about it than anybody else they might need to explain. However I noticed that if the solvent is removed, it loses its properties so it doesn't sound very stable.

If the solvent used to prepare the new form of carbon is removed by heat treatment, the material loses its lattice periodicity, indicating that that the solvent is crucial for maintaining the chemical transition that underlies the new structure.

I think this could limit the applications.

It's still an interesting find. I was pondering earlier this week if diamond was still the hardest substance known, or if something harder had been found, and a few days later I run across this....good timing!