Nano Composites


 

Running Notes

Material sciences are always trying to make stuff better.

 

There are tons of nanotube composites in Aerospace available today.

 

Navy did tests where the put several different samples in seawater and found out that steel, followed by glass had best corrosion resistance.

 

Uncoated fiber reinforced cement is inherently corrosion resistant.  Coated is even better.  For glass, you would need an alkaline resistant glass.

 

Foam cement you lose strength but if you add fiber you should get some strength back and still have lightweight material.

 

No one here is from Zyvx.  

 

We can create different urban facilities that by their virtue of form are a 100 times stronger than what we've got now.  

 

Bucky paper is a 2d, shorn, flat clean wall nanotube.

 

Catalysts and enzymes are how to mass manufacture nanotubes.

 

In the last five years they came up with paint that was really amazing.

 

http://www.zaha-hadid.com/ (good luck getting through annoying splash screens)

 

There are wrinkle-free and stain-free pants made with nano interwoven.

 

There are few composites where nano is substituted in the molecular chain.  A big use of these is cosmetics.  Perhaps Maybeline is the largest user/producer of nano composites at the moment.

 

Extremely strong threads can be made.

 

What are environmental applications?  There is high environmental risk in general associated with nanotechnology.

 

Shelden technologies is doing nano water filter.  Alan Cummings runs that

 

Using nanoarticles for treating cancer.  Inject nano and then use conductive heating or steam it into bursting.

 

Nanoparticles are out there - even in burnt pizza!

 

Nanotechnologies allow you to customize any property of your material.  A few examples:

 

The number of types of base materials have exploded, as have the number of types of materials you can use for "fill" and/or nano-fill.

 

Radar deflecting and reflecting materials are available too, but of course much more difficult to find information about.

 

Thin-film solar stuff, like Mia Sole, or Solendra are using applied Nanotechnology.  A lot of people are not calling it nanotechnology or saying nanotechnology once it becomes applied.  At that point, it just becomes a technology, like "flex-wing" or "stainless pants" or something.

 

Eric Drexler went to a CAD company that actually designs things at the Nanoscale. 

 

The so-called "NanObama" , a nano that looks like Obama, is out there.

 

Three companies dealing with this stuff calling themselves Chemical

 

A lot of interesting stuff happening with Graphine, which may leap frog carbon nanotube.

 

Getting a hold of nanotechnology is difficult.  Hard to find sellers.

 

Bladerunner buildings - arches and beams.

 

In order to get nanotechnology into building materials we may have to wait at least five years for enough volume of nano getting involved in things and for construction, more safety testing is needed.

 

Resources

The materials handbook: http://www.amazon.com/Materials-Handbook-George-S-Brady/dp/0070070849

 

The nanomaterials handbook:  http://www.amazon.com/Nanomaterials-Handbook-Yury-Gogotsi/dp/0849323088

 

Society for Advancement of Materials and Process Engineering:  http://www.sampe.org/

 

http://www.zaha-hadid.com/ (good luck getting through annoying splash screens)

 

Brian Wong's blog:  http://nextbigfuture.com/

 

Attendees

Michael Andregg works with deposition, z-beam, afm.  Worked a little bit with graphinhg, but mostly positioning of DNA.

 

Mike Doty mechanical engineering contractor.  Worked on satellite control systems

 

Scott Elofson doing adjustable color temperature lighting

 

Jim Barkley is a CSCI background and looking to build some things cheaply with

 

Eric Boswell isa mechanical engineer

 

Max Sims has done medical equipment

 

is interested in using nanotechnology in other countries. 

 

Anna ??? is a mechanical engineer who went into the arts