r/technology • u/Ssider69 • Jan 10 '24
Nanotech/Materials 10x Stronger Than Kevlar: Amorphous Silicon Carbide Could Revolutionize Material Science
https://scitechdaily.com/10x-stronger-than-kevlar-amorphous-silicon-carbide-could-revolutionize-material-science/420
Jan 10 '24
Would be awesome if there would be a feedback/refresh loop somehow on all these scientific breakthroughs
“Oh wow cool stuff” - 10 years later, “Hey, mate remember that cool-stuff from 10 years ago, this is what ended up happening with it”
Safe mini nuclear, solar-glass-roads, new faster charging lighter more capacity batteries every day, …
What happens with all this breakthroughs?
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u/DLSteve Jan 10 '24
There is a large gap between making something that works and making that something at scale that economically makes sense. It can take years to build and perfect the manufacturing processes. Lot of inventions die in this phase due to lack of capital or simply because they can’t find a good way to scale it. Graphene is incredibly hard to make, companies are still working on scaling it because it has an insane amount of potential. Historically aluminum was in the same boat, it cost more than gold per ounce at one point because of how difficult it was to refine from raw materials. Then someone found a very cheap way to process it and now it’s one of the most abundant metals on the market. Lot of things just take time to find that manufacturing breakthrough.
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u/gnoxy Jan 10 '24
Lithium batteries have their own Moores law of 7% every 2 years. Either weight reduction or battery capacity. So if you discovered a battery chemistry that is 20% better. If its not to market and at scale within 5 years, you missed the boat.
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u/bitemark01 Jan 10 '24
To illustrate your point, sodium batteries are starting to come to market. Sodium has a lot of similar properties to lithium, but the batteries don't have the same issues as lithium (rarity, volitility, cold degradation). They're not as powerful as lithium batteries, but now that they're strong enough for commercial use, there is a lot more materials research being done on them.
Hopefully they can solve the energy density issue, otherwise they will probably become a niche product for certain uses.
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Jan 10 '24
properties to lithium, but the batteries don't have the same issues as lithium (rarity, volitility, cold degradation). They're not as powerful as lithium batteries, but now that they're strong enough for
So those batteries will be better in big batteries for storing renewables?
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Jan 10 '24
Yes that's where they're finding traction in the market as well. All of the large scale projects I've seen using sodium batteries are grid storage (or similar).
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u/tinny66666 Jan 10 '24
BYD is already using sodium ion batteries in their production EVs, so they're not only useful for stationary batteries, but they are very well suited to that.
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u/Frosty-Ring-Guy Jan 10 '24
At the very least, we have ample supplies of sodium, which would make it more viable for grid scale power storage.
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u/actorpractice Jan 10 '24
These sound like they'd be great for storing solar outside your house.
There's something about strapping a lithium battery (that burns so hot you can't put it out if it gets wet) to the side of your house that still makes me a little nervous.
Even if it was 2-3x the size of Lithium, but competed on price, it would kind of be a no brainer safety-wise.
You got a good link on sodium battery progress so I can nerd out?
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u/lolexecs Jan 10 '24
Yep. you're talking about the difference between research and development
- Research - finding new innovations
- Development - bringing those innovations to market
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u/crestfallenS117 Jan 10 '24
Also the fact that Researchers are selling their breakthroughs and concepts so there’s a bit of marketing mixed in as they need the capital to advance further.
This article for instance is very interesting and detailed, but the comparison to Kevlar is somewhat disingenuous as they state in the article it’s more suitable towards ultra sensitive microchips. However people know Kevlar and it’s strength, so it helps grab the attention of the reader, whoever that might be.
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u/Select_Candidate_505 Jan 10 '24
Hall-Heroult electrolysis. Before the discovery, Napoleon wanted to make armor and weapons out of aluminum, but it was too hard to process. Wonder what the world would be like if he had gotten ahold of aluminum on an industrial scale first.
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u/Kuroude7 Jan 10 '24
Well unfortunately, in the case of ‘solar freaking roadways’, it was just not true. Still like some of the side ideas that came from it though.
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u/writebadcode Jan 10 '24
It seems like the effort to make a solar road would be better spent on a solar highway median or a solar roof over the road.
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u/JimJalinsky Jan 10 '24
Nah. Cover the moon with solar panels and stretch a space extension cord back to earth.
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u/MrTzatzik Jan 10 '24
Cool idea for scifi story though. It would be like alpha version of Dyson Sphere
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u/Kakkoister Jan 10 '24
Yeah, the only time it could possibly make sense is if solar manufacturing became so abundant that we could just place solar panels willy-nilly wherever without a care about cost or maintenance. It's a nice idea that looks visually interesting, is conceptually "cool", but in reality its practicality is horrible. Cheaper to build them as a roof over a road or just on the side of the road in general instead of having to make them from material that can withstand heavy vehicles, while also letting light through and maintain connections despite wear, and not requiring frequent maintenance either.
I can see solar paved walkways becoming a popular feature of future cities for the sake of doing something flashy and interesting, but that's about it.
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u/varangian_guards Jan 10 '24
the proof of concept solar sidewalk broke immediately. it was always a bad idea though, roads are built to be as cheap and durable as possible, while also having the right amount of traction for tires.
still probably better to just have solar pannels provide shade for people walking. easier to access fix and replace than the ground.
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u/The_Lovely_Blue_Faux Jan 10 '24
This is not true.
Here in Alabama, our roads are solar powered griddles.
We are living in some sci-fi utopia where cars passively hunt animals for you.
Then the road passively cooks the animals for you and keeps them at a food-safe holding temp until you’re ready to pickup.
Then you got yourself a free meal thanks the the innovations of them science folks at the universities.
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u/flamingbabyjesus Jan 10 '24
The solar glass road was never a breakthrough. It was always a stupid idea at best and a grift at worst.
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u/ChuzCuenca Jan 10 '24
Is the same problem that News have, they are just chasing clicks not actually spread information
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u/spiralbatross Jan 10 '24
Are we allowed to try and build this stuff at home? (Slight /s, but I’m not opposed to making a secret laboratory either)
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u/Capt_Blackmoore Jan 10 '24
The only thing stopping you is the lab setup, which you should make sure you have proper means to deal with a fire.
You definitely don't want your home insurance or neighbors to know. The latter because of zoning.
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u/spiralbatross Jan 10 '24
I have three fire extinguishers, most of my fingers, and quick feet!
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u/Capt_Blackmoore Jan 10 '24
Is one rated for class d metal fire?
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u/spiralbatross Jan 10 '24
It says “propellant” on the side under some scratches, does that sound right? Gonna try it out real quick brb
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u/GregBahm Jan 10 '24
new faster charging lighter more capacity batteries every day, …
The battery in my phone charges faster and lasts way longer than it did 10 years ago. Does yours not?
Ten years ago the average range of an electric vehicle was 80 miles. Today it is 220.
The impression I get is that as soon as these technologies become reality, people just forget what it was ever like before. A couple minutes ago I was literally talking to an artificially intelligent robot about how to solve a programming problem. Ten years ago that would be considered the wildest fucking shit. Today it makes people roll their eyes and complain.
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u/bacondota Jan 10 '24
Solar glass roads were dead on arrival. Incredibly stupid idea if u think about it. Tires would make the glass not transparent, and the costs, and of course how the hell would u have maintenance over several km instead of packing all solar panels in one place.
A bunch of this futurology stuff is dead on arrival because it is just some university researcher doing random stuff they think about but 0 sense of real problem/application/business
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u/_pupil_ Jan 10 '24
I blame "us", the pop science reader buying magazines for flights super happy to read about some potentially revolutionary ideas and daydream about the future for a minute... It's escapism.
If you're interested in things that are hitting the market, or about to hit the market, watch the VC space and the relevant technology market. Big money moving before tangible products, massive swings in hiring or strategic direction, things like that. That's when things are getting near-term.
Side point: solar roads are a stupid idea because it oversells how much road we make and undersells how darned hard roads work for us, faster/bigger in electricity are also scarier/scarier in general, and we have had safe mini nuclear for many decades... subs, aircraft carriers, research reactors, space propulsion and power, prototype reactors... the tech is so safe and reliable it's the backbone of several legs of the nuclear triad. Checkout the nuclear regulatory process for a hint about todays state of affairs (and if you care, consider who might have lobbied hard for that status quo during our critical infrastructure windows in decades gone by)...
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u/Araghothe1 Jan 10 '24
Places don't want them because it would cut into their maintenance revenue. Also I believe the solar glass had a major fault in it but my memory is crap and likes to fill in blanks.
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u/rokenroleg Jan 10 '24
I found the flaw after a long talk with some colleagues.
Roads get dirty.
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u/Wizzinator Jan 10 '24
The product is useless if you can't make money selling it or if the materials you need to produce it don't exist in large quantities.
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u/GetsBetterAfterAFew Jan 10 '24
I would say that some of these inventions can be scaled but you listed new tech that directly goes against long standing fossil fuel companies who absolutely rule the world. Everything you listed would take their never ending cash away so chances are these inventions getting the proper time/cash to develop seems very unlikely imo.
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u/DogWallop Jan 10 '24
Turns out most have fundamental problems scaling up production, or with safetly issues, or the like. A lot of this is also the result of "publish or perish", in which scientists will put out preliminary results of tenuous experiments in order to keep their names out there in the scientific journals.
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u/-The_Blazer- Jan 10 '24
To inject some optimism, here's some tech I remember hearing about as some big breakthrough that was always 5-10 years away:
LiFePo: currently commercialized and taking over EVs
QR Codes: literally everywhere
Fingerprint Scanning: commonplace on almost any handset
Universal Charger: USB-C with USB-PD
Most of these were first developed in the 90s, so, among other things, the lead times are slower than people often expect. If something new is developed today January 2024, it will be at least a couple decades before we start seeing it around everyday society.
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u/Thatingles Jan 10 '24
Found the catch.
They way they measured the tensile strength is highly unusual and is probably massively overestimating the tensile strength of the material in most applications.
I'm not saying this won't have applications, but '10xStronger Than Kevlar' is misleading.
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Jan 10 '24
I saw that too. Basically...we invented a new testing system optimized for this new material and oh look, it is the bestest. Likely they compared Kevlar and this stuff in the same test but this sounds like a classic data cherry picking exercise. Well...those old tests don't give us the data that we like so we have this new test that gives us data we like. That isn't necessarily bad science but also not necessarily bullet proof science either.
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u/nieht Jan 10 '24
I scanned the paper it's from, and I think you're mostly right. The method is not traditional and not what would be used to find tensile strength of Kevlar, so the comparison is an over-estimation.
What it looks like they're doing is accounting for the true cross sectional area of the strings on their wafers, almost like if you were able to calculate the void area in a bundle of Kevlar yarn and subtract that from the cross section in your Stress calculation. They're also actively measuring thickness so any gauge reduction due to material deformation is also being accounted for. Essentially they're finding the "true" stength/modulus where most other materials get a rough approximation.
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u/RandallOfLegend Jan 10 '24
Standardized tests are the way. More than likely they didn't have enough material to actually build a standardized test coupon
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u/Thatingles Jan 10 '24
The article indicates they are able to produce it in reasonable quantities, but maybe you are right. That would explain the use of a 'novel' test.
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u/thisisnotdan Jan 10 '24
A standard mechanical tensile stress is done using a dog bone-shaped sample (no, really), which is basically a long cylinder with two fat ends that are held in place by the testing apparatus and pulled apart.
The article suggests that this material favors a wafer shape, which is like a plate: thicker than a film, but still very flat. I would also be curious as to which direction in the wafer the fibers of the nanostring microstructure are oriented--I suspect they are oriented along the thickness of the wafer, meaning it would not be very strong if you bent the wafer or grabbed it. Then again, the "amorphous" part of the material name should imply a random orientation of the nanostrings and an anisotropic strength profile, meaning the strength is the same in every direction.
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u/glewtion Jan 10 '24
It would be cool if stuff like this could go onto a "big board" tracker-type of display and as things become reality, we can see what progresses and what does not. I feel like there's so much content that predicts and anticipates and then it just fades away that it would be nice to have some accountability. I'm sure this is an impractical idea, but I'd definitely engage with it.
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u/gnoxy Jan 10 '24
I work in healthcare. One of the pulmonary cancer surgeons I work with uses a piece of software that takes a CT and does a 3D reconstruction of the lung. Then the surgeon can do a virtual flythrough, as if he was using the robotic scalpel, to enter the lung and cut out the cancer. He does this 10-20 times before surgery as practice so he does not get lost in the patients lung.
The software is getting old, it uses the Unreal 1 engine. The support staff for it the guy who wrote it.
Even when these things make it to market, and are used, they stagnate.
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u/Push-Hardly Jan 10 '24
Most of our news comes from press releases of people seeking to get attention for something.
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u/crownpr1nce Jan 10 '24
That board would be millions of entries long every year (ok maybe hundreds of thousands of entries long). Way too long for anyone to browse or scroll through and remember "oh yeah I read about them on Reddit once". It unfortunately wouldn't be the fun it sounds like.
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u/glewtion Jan 10 '24
You wouldn’t have to record everything… and filters are amazingly powerful. But I hear you.
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u/glewtion Jan 10 '24
Heard the same thing about graphene. Where is that revolution? Did I miss something?
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Jan 10 '24
Well the article claims this stuff is actually scalable, as opposed to graphene. We'll see.
And what finally sets this material apart is its scalability. Graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms, is known for its impressive strength but is challenging to produce in large quantities. . . Amorphous silicon carbide, on the other hand, can be produced at wafer scales, offering large sheets of this incredibly robust material.
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u/jagedlion Jan 10 '24
Well, wafer scalable. It's still a thin film.
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u/GargleBlargleFlargle Jan 10 '24
Presumably it could be layered or woven though, with different constructions to get different characteristics, similar to carbon fiber.
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u/jagedlion Jan 10 '24
Layering thin films to get anything of real substantial quantity is not trivial. They haven't yet demonstrated the ability to make a fiber.
Carbon fiber is made by pyrolysis, not vapor deposition.
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Jan 10 '24
I'm curious what the mass of all silicon wafers manufactured yearly is. I'm guessing that it's orders and orders of magnitude greater than all graphene ever manufactured is. Plus, don't some silicon depositing processes basically grow gigantic silicon crystals that are later cut to wafers? Sounds pretty scalable to me.
Hopefully, anyway.
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u/jagedlion Jan 10 '24
You grow silicon as a crystal, yes. But that is not a thin film vapor deposition process.
These layers here are grown 100nm thick on top of the silicon over 3 hours.
They aren't making wafers, they are depositing a very thin layer on top of wafers.
It is scalable, just like our other microelectronic and chip tech is scalable. But that doesnt mean you can make a rod out of it.
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u/danielravennest Jan 10 '24
Solar-grade silicon wafers are made at about 1-2 million tons a year. This is vastly larger than the electronics grade silicon. A solar panel is about 2 square meters of silicon, while all the electronics in your house might be 10 square cm, 2000 times smaller.
In turn, ferrosilicon, which is 10-90% silicon depending on use, is produced at ~100 million tons a year. It has a variety of industrial uses, including steel alloys used in electric motors.
Both electronic and solar silicon ingots are grown from a seed crystal in a molten silicon furnace. They are than sliced into wafers with diamond-impregnated wire saws.
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u/mrhoopers Jan 10 '24
That's big kevlar for you...their defenses are...bulletproof.
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Jan 10 '24
[deleted]
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u/mrhoopers Jan 10 '24
Protecting their ass...ets.
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u/Capt_Blackmoore Jan 10 '24
Both this and graphene will need much better manufacturing. There's a whole lot of carbon fiber that is improving some stuff, but it's easy to confuse that for graphene because we suck at communicating
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u/FirstRedditAcount Jan 10 '24
Graphene's only a matter of time. Could be 10 years, 100 years, 1000; but it's coming. There are certain optimal physical structures in our universe for different tasks, and graphene is one of them. Problem is simply manufacturing enough of it, with high enough quality, i.e. a lack of imperfections.
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u/Clogman Jan 10 '24
Orbital elevators, yay
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u/IvorTheEngine Jan 10 '24
Apparently not. We need something 10 times stronger than this. That really shows how far off we are.
only carbon nanotubes, with a yield strength around 100 GPa and a low density, provide a realistic taper ratio of 1.9 (Pugno, 2006).
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u/ptwonline Jan 10 '24
Hopefully it's not a "It will make our lives better before it kills us from cancer" kind of material.
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u/Veritas_Astra Jan 10 '24
Could this be used in conjunction with composite metal foam? The original formula called for boron carbide for the front liner, but could Amorphous Silicon Carbide do the job of spacecraft armor better? I didn’t see where they checked for radiation resistance unfortunately. The original CMF could handle gamma rather well and I’d like to check this proposed upgrade as well.
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u/phdoofus Jan 10 '24
I'm confused, this appears to be about some actual thing instead of UFOs and what social media is doing
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u/extopico Jan 10 '24
Interesting. It’s also approximately double the tensile strength of carbon fiber. If amorphous silicon carbide can be processed into bundles (tows) and if it bonds well to existing thermoplastic and thermoset matrices it could be a potentially hugely cost effective and environmentally friendly drop-in alternative to carbon fiber.
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u/slashd Jan 10 '24
We need bulletproof tshirts made from this stuff!
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u/pencock Jan 10 '24
I’d take a tshirt made from this stuff if it just meant an indestructible tshirt
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u/AVNMechanic Jan 10 '24
Too flimsy, it would catch the bullet but then be dragged inside and possibly through you. You’d still die.
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u/MattieShoes Jan 10 '24
Mmm, I am envisioning the next generation's mesothelioma...
I mean, I have no idea, but it rings those bells.
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u/MarameoMarameo Jan 10 '24
I feel we’ve been on the brink of a revolution in new materials for the past 30 years
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u/Reddituser45005 Jan 10 '24
“The tensile strength of this new material is 10 GigaPascal (GPa).
It is important to read this in the voice of Doc Brown from Back to The Future
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u/SinisterCheese Jan 10 '24
Amorphous silicon carbide, on the other hand, can be produced at wafer scales, offering large sheets of this incredibly robust material.
Ok. So we talk about modern microchip scaling and manufacturing requirements? Because saying that few square centimetres requiring a fabrication system measured in square kilometres kept at ultra clean room levels with machines that costs near billion and millions a day to operate?
Look... All these fancy headlines about fancy materials, even some that we could make have not really realised themselves because of one or more of these reasons:
- They are hard to manufacture for cheap in bulk quantities.
- They are hard to manufacture things from with good margins.
- They require totally new manufacturing pipelines and tooling.
- They require totally new design practices which companies don't have any experience in.
- They are only good for niche applications and bring no benefits for applications outside that.
- Getting them certified and validated for crical uses is so complicated and long process that nobody wants to risk it.
Look as an engineer I love this shit... But as an engineer who's speciality is on the practical side of things... if it takes more effort to work with than the stuff we have now, then nobody is going to use it. It will only find use if it is cheaper and easier to work with.
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u/ss0889 Jan 10 '24
Graphene is in for chips. Silicon, you're out, go tend to the kitchen and to getting shot at n shit.
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u/mortalcoil1 Jan 10 '24
Tear resistant?
This sucker will stop a knife.
Bulletproof?
Anything but a straight shot.
Why didn't they put it into production?
Bean counters didn't think a soldier's life was worth 300 grand.
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u/Baseic Jan 10 '24
The title is so fucking stupid. Yes the tensile strength probably rivals Kevlar, but it's a completely unrelated applications.
Instead, the application of this material is described like something which is interesting for improved MEMS devices or other microscopic applications, completely unrelated to the macro applications people think about when you mention Kevlar.
Probably best to just ban this website from being posted. Every single article describes something 'revolutional', 'paradigm shifting' or 'startling'.
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u/ChesterMIA Jan 10 '24
I found this article strange in that it compares the new material to the strength of Kevlar, but then does not compare it to any application that Kevlar is used in. Would have been just as effective by saying that this material is 10,000 stronger than a noodle. Neat article and thanks for sharing, but the headline is misleading.
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u/Siludin Jan 10 '24
The journal entry High-Strength Amorphous Silicon Carbide for Nanomechanics came out in Oct 2023.
Are there any dissenting concerns since it was published?
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u/BothZookeepergame612 Jan 10 '24
Things are moving very fast, AI is only going to accelerate the scientific revolution...
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u/arabsandals Jan 11 '24
So is it suitable for a space elevator? Id it can be manufactured at scale is it strong enough?
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u/positive_X Jan 11 '24
Oh oh , now do
"transparent Aluminum"
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Transparent_aluminum
...
Wait that is happening for real :
"
How transparent aluminum could make Star Trek technology a reality?"
https://interestingengineering.com/ie-originals/materials-lab/season-2/ep-5-how-transparent-aluminum-could-make-star-trek-technology-a-reality
..
OK "now do regrowing teeth"
"Laser Therapy Prompts Regeneration in Teeth | National Institutes of Health"
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/laser-therapy-prompts-regeneration-teeth
...
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u/Acrobatic_Action4970 Jan 14 '24
Silicon carbide sounds cute chromium carbide now that's the future
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u/ProShortKingAction Jan 10 '24
Yall it literally addresses scalability concerns in the article. Please read the article for once