Nanotubes

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You Don't Have to be Afraid of Cancer Anymore Bill Sardi See book keywords and concepts

Carbon nanotubes spots cancer lying in remission and determines if, and when it may flare up, and identifies new tumors as well. Development expected by 2008. - Lab-on-a-Chip promises early detection of cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's and other ills. Patients will one day walk into their doctor's office with this handheld device, give a few drops of blood, and in minutes, receive a complete health diagnosis.

Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century Alex Steffen See book keywords and concepts

The same kinds of nanomaterials can also be used to filter contaminants such as metals, bacteria, and even viruses, from water. ¦ nanotubes can make the process of producing hydrogen from water twice as efficient, so they may play a big part in making hydrogen-powered cars possible. ¦ Photovoltaic cells made from nanotubes are more flexible, lighter in weight, and potentially less expensive than traditional silicon solar cells. In theory, we'll be able to do a lot more with them: embed them in fabrics, wrap them around curving structures, and paint them on walls and roofs.

The main drawback of employing nanotubes has been the expense and difficulty of their production. In mid-2005, however, researchers at the University of Texas, Dallas, and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia came up with a way to make strong, stable macroscale sheets and ribbons of multiwall nanotubes at a rate of 7 meters (23 feet) per minute.

And the metals industry: is it in the mining and smelting business, or is it in the materials business, providing high-quality ingredients for the modern economy, whether those are recycled metals, new substances (like carbon nanotubes) or better design? Mining or materials? We could ask the question of any industry. Is the automobile industry in the business of selling cars, or of moving people? Is agriculture in the business of raising massive amounts of food, or of providing nutrition and healthy soils?

Photovoltaic cells made from nanotubes are more flexible, lighter in weight, and potentially less expensive than traditional silicon solar cells. In theory, we'll be able to do a lot more with them: embed them in fabrics, wrap them around curving structures, and paint them on walls and roofs. ¦ The development of nanoscale wires able to turn heat into electricity and vice versa will mean refrigerators that can operate without pumps or chemicals, solar panels that are able to extract power from heat or light, and even vehicles that can draw power from the heat of engines.

And researchers are finding ways to reduce the toxicity of the most dangerous nanotubes dramatically: a recent minor modification reduced the cytotoxicity (the dose at which 50 percent of affected cells die within forty-eight hours) by more than 10,000 times, making the modified nanotube essentially nontoxic. jc The Precautionary Principle Writers of bad science fiction and easily startled doomsayers love the idea of out-of-control nanomachines—machines that self-replicate and devour everything in their path.

101 Things You Don't Know About Science And No One Else Does Either James Trefil See book keywords and concepts

A place where nanotechnology seems to be progressing rapidly is in the construction of so-called carbon nanotubes. When placed in a strong electric field, carbon atoms can arrange themselves into sheets, which then fold up into a set of nested tubes. A set of tubes typically will contain up to twenty individual tubes that are up to 20 nanometers across and some thousands of nanometers long. Some researchers are trying to find ways of keeping carbon atoms happy enough to grow nanotubes several feet long.

Nanowhiskers are made by exposing carbon nanotubes to a gas containing silicon, titanium, or some other metal. The tubes trap this gas, which then reacts with the carbon to make tube-sized whiskers of silicon or titanium carbide, the materials normally used in composite materials. Nanowhiskers, however, are only one thousandth the size of ordinary whiskers, which means that for a given weight of whiskers there is a lot more surface area to bind them to the matrix. The hope is that materials made from nanowhiskers will be even lighter and stronger than those currently in use.

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