DailyDirt: Lots Of Cool Carbon-Based Molecules

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Wed, Dec 2nd 2015 5:00pm — Michael Ho

The history of materials once correlated highly with the development of civilization: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, ... the Silicon Age.... However, we seem to have gotten away from huge advances depending on the discovery of new materials. Or maybe we just haven't discovered how to make the right materials yet (e.g., room temperature superconductors, nanotubes, etc). Here are just a few interesting materials that might change the world (if we can make them).

Diamond nanothread is a stable form of one-dimensional diamond, and it could be a very useful material if we figure out how to make it reliably in large quantities -- with just enough defects to prevent it from being too brittle. Graphene is a similar "wonder material" that promises breakthrough properties, if only we could manufacture it correctly. So far, diamond nanothread can only be made a couple of cubic millimeters at a time, but it could someday make ultra-strong materials for space elevator tethers and other applications that currently remain in the realm of science fiction. [url]
The potential of graphene has been held back by the expense of manufacturing it, but that might change in the near future. Researchers claim that large-area graphene sheets can be made about 100 times cheaper than ever before, using commercially-available copper foil. Billions are being spent to crack graphene production issues, so we're presumably going to see graphene-based products in our lifetimes. [url]
A modified buckminsterfullerene molecule called a "buckybomb" (or dodecanitrofullerene) could be a new class of high energy nanomaterials. This stuff actually needs to be synthesized first to determine if it's actually as explosive as the simulations predict it will be, but if anyone dares to make this molecule in significant quantities, it could be many orders of magnitude more powerful than TNT. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, check out this holiday gift guide for some awesome deals at the Techdirt deals store.

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Filed Under: buckybomb, carbon, diamond nanothread, diamonds, explosives, graphene, materials, nanotech, nanotubes, space elevator, tnt

8 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 2 Dec 2015 @ 5:41pm

Rice University has you covered!
Over at Rice University, they figured out how to produce Carbon Nanotube thread. If you used this thread to make pneumatic and hydraulic cables, you could reduce the weight of airplanes by more tons that you could imagine. The fact that they could also potentially double as power conduits makes this an even more exciting concept:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XDJC64tDR0
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Dec 2015 @ 5:50pm

graphene light bulb... almost commercial?
http://www.businessinsider.com/first-graphene-light-bulb-hits-stores-2015-3

haven't seen one in the stores yet, tho. So it could be more graphene vaporware.
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scatman09 (profile), 3 Dec 2015 @ 4:59am

target elevator
a space elevator...really?
You'll shoot your eye out, kid--er, I mean--a terrorist will fly a plane into that, kid.
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Mason Wheeler (profile), 3 Dec 2015 @ 7:33am

Wait, what's with this claim by the University of Glasgow to have just discovered how to cheaply make graphene sheets by CVD on copper foil? That technique was discovered a while back by Shou-En Zhu, a PhD student studying in the Netherlands. Here he is talking about it, back in March.

If more than one researcher/group of researchers discovered it independently, though, then that's kind of awesome. But the Glasgow guys aren't the first to come up with it.
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- Anonymous Coward, 3 Dec 2015 @ 12:33pm
  
  Re:
  I think that guy said his small amount of graphene cost about 1000 euros.... and it was smaller than a square meter in area. These Glasgow folks say that their costs are much cheaper - 100x - using some other kind of cheap copper foil. I don't really know the details, but it sounds like a slightly different methods, using a cheaper catalyst substrate
  
  I'd like to know how they peel off the graphene sheets from the copper foil and apply it to other materials like glass....... and is that glass now bullet-proof or scratch proof? Who needs a sapphire iPhone screen when graphene coated Gorilla glass will work even better and could be cheaper?
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Jim Robinson, 3 Dec 2015 @ 11:06am

cubic millimeter?
is that the same as a milliliter? How long is a milliliter of one dimensional diamond?
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- Mason Wheeler (profile), 3 Dec 2015 @ 11:42am
  
  Re: cubic millimeter?
  No, a milliliter is a cubic centimeter. (If you ever see a doctor on TV measuring a drug dosage in "CCs", this is what it means.) A millimeter is 1/10 of a centimeter, so a cubic millimeter would be 1/10^3 (or 1/1000) of a CC.
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- Anonymous Coward, 3 Dec 2015 @ 11:49am
  
  Re: cubic millimeter?
  It's not actually one dimensional. It's a "nano" thread, so the width and height are really really small, but they still exist. So it still has volume. A tiny tiny volume.
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