Boron Nitride Nanotubes Getting Commercial R&D, Likely Future Armor

in science on 2014-09-15 12:25 (#2SE4)

Nearly 20 years ago researcher Alex Zettl of the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) synthesized in his laboratory a new material never before found in nature: boron nitride nanotubes, the strongest, lightest, most thermally conducting and most chemically resistant fiber known to exist. Now a startup has licensed this technology with the aim of manufacturing boron nitride nanotubes for commercial use.

Nanowerk reports about this new material:

These textile-like nanotubes with the appearance of cotton have a molecular backbone 100 times stronger than steel. They are as strong as the better-known carbon nanotubes (CNTs), but much more heat resistant - up to 800C in air and very resistant to many chemical modifications.
"So far, it has been generally accepted knowledge that BNNT are highly inert to oxidative treatments and can only be covalently modified by highly reactive species," Zhongfang Chen, a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), tells Nanowerk. "By contrast, oxidation of CNTs has been proven very convenient and fundamentally important to modify the nanotube structure and morphology via controlled corrosive effects."

There's more about the material on Wikipedia.

This is cool stuff. (Score: 1)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-09-16 19:21 (#2SFS)

I feel bad commenting on this article because I'm totally unqualified. But it's a reminder I like to be exposed to sciences I don't normally pay attention to because it breaks me out of my rut. There's so many interesting things going on out there, and the size of apple's new iphone isn't one of them.

Re: This is cool stuff. (Score: 1)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2014-09-17 05:26 (#2SG3)

Yeah, that's basically the argument I just had over at SoylentNews.

Specifically, they're posting lots of political flamebait and other crap stories, and clearly have no interest in sticking to sci/tech. While my comment did (eventually) get modded-up to +5, it seems apparent that my plea fell on completely deaf ears:

http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=3912&cid=93644

Examples such as paulej72 saying science stories just don't get enough (whatever that is) comments:

http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=3912&cid=93940

That, plus my repeated reasoned and fully-cited pleas for the same, from back to the start of the site, clearly having no positive effect:

http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=188&cid=3808

As well as incidents, such as them asking for community input, such as the poll asking how frequently stories should be posted to the front-page, then stating that they reached a different answer internally, and blatantly disregarding the community input.

In short (too late!), I sincerely hope pipedot doesn't post a story about "Science, Atheism, and Captain Kirk" like Slashdot and SoylentNews both did, which essentially caused me to abandon all hope for them both, and come here...

Re: This is cool stuff. (Score: 1)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-09-17 10:47 (#2SGD)

Yeah, I'm zafiro17 over there too. I was following that conversation, and noted your post there coincided with an uptick in activity here. Difficult times for news-for-nerds sites, maybe. Anyway, you've added some interesting stuff to the pipe; thanks for that. And I don't see "Athiesm and Captain Kirk" in the pipe, so I wouldn't worry about it getting posted here :)

I'm not a fan of the political flamebait articles here or anywhere else. I come here for tech and science and as volunteer editor that's what I'm trying to keep on the front page. Anyone who wants that other stuff can go to the HuffingtonPost, I'd say. Or CNN. Or a lot of other places, too.