Carbon nanotubes

Realizing dreams of carbon nanotubes

by Nanocomp September 28, 2010

A guest blog by John Dorr, Vice President of Business Development Nanocomp Technologies Inc. Despite all the fuss over nanotechnology, it’s surprisingly difficult to get a clear sense of how the technology is contributing to new products.  So when the company Nanocomp Technologies Inc. approached me with an idea of writing a guest blog about [...]

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Ten emerging technology trends to watch over the next decade

by Andrew Maynard December 25, 2009

Ten years ago at the close of the 20th century, people the world over were obsessing about the millennium bug – an unanticipated glitch arising from an earlier technology.  I wonder how clear it was then that, despite this storm in what turned out to be a rather small teacup, the following decade would see [...]

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Building better batteries, the Chinese way

by Andrew Maynard April 2, 2009

Reading yesterday’s New York Times, it seems China could well be poised to leapfrog the West in advanced battery technology (China Vies to Be World’s Leader in Electric Cars). According to the article, Chinese leaders have adopted a plan aimed at turning the country into one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles [...]

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New carbon nanotube study raises the health impact stakes

by Andrew Maynard March 26, 2009

I’m looking at an electron microscope image of a carbon nanotube – as I cannot show it here, you’ll have to imagine it.  It shows a long, straight, multi-walled carbon nanotube, around 100 nanometers wide and 10 micrometers long.  There is nothing particularly unusual about this.  What is unusual is that the image also shows [...]

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Working safely with carbon nanotubes

by Andrew Maynard March 17, 2009

So you want to make or use carbon nanotubes, but you are worried about handling then safely.  What do you do?  The good news is that the UK Health and Safety Executive has just published an information sheet that addresses just this question.  Risk management of carbon nanotubes is (according to the blurb) “specifically about [...]

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A 2020 Science Taster

by Andrew Maynard February 19, 2009

Given the recent surge in 2020science readers (thanks to Lon S. Cohen at Mashable), I thought it about time I did a short retrospective—a taster for the type of stuff you can expect to read here.  So here are five pieces from the past year that cover everything from nanotechnology to synthetic biology, and ethics [...]

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Asbestos-like nanomaterials – should we be concerned?

by Andrew Maynard January 23, 2009

I’m afraid the “A” word just won’t go away.  It seems that every time people start thinking about the possible health effects of long, thin, fibrous nanomaterials, the question pops up “is this the next asbestos?”  You’d have thought that the issue would have been resolved by now—after all, nanomaterials like carbon nanotubes have been [...]

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A red-letter day for science and technology

by Andrew Maynard January 20, 2009

As Barack Obama takes the oath and is inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States, many are anticipating a new era of socially relevant science and technology.  Having run one of the most technologically savvy campaigns in recent times—possibly ever—Obama’s transition teams continued to break new ground in using technology up open up [...]

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Carbon nanotubes rock—literally!

by Andrew Maynard November 26, 2008

A nanotechnology fix for high-end audio addicts? I’m sitting at my computer watching a surreal balletic movie—a sheet of highly aligned carbon nanotubes is being slowly stretched, then allowed to slowly contract.  In the background is a soundtrack of traditional-sounding Chinese music. At least I think the soundtrack is over-dubbed, until I realize that the [...]

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Resolving the carbon nanotube identity crisis

by Andrew Maynard October 31, 2008

Twelve months ago today I held a bag of multi-walled carbon nanotubes up before a hearing of the U.S. House Science Committee.  I wanted to emphasize the discrepancy between the current state of the science on carbon nanotubes, and a tendency to classify this substance as the relatively benign material graphite from a safety perspective.  [...]

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Smart materials; smart choices?

by Andrew Maynard May 31, 2008

Why nano?  Why care?  For non-nanotech initiates, an obsession with nanotechnology must sometimes seem a bizarre occupation of the sad and lonely.  And even within the nanotechnology community, who hasn’t had occasional doubts over the legitimacy of singling out “nano” as something special?  Yet occasionally a piece of work comes along that helps put things [...]

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Carbon nanotubes: the new asbestos? Not if we act fast.

by Andrew Maynard May 21, 2008

Mix carbon nanotubes and asbestos together (metaphorically) and you get an explosive mix—at least if news coverage of the latest publication coming out of Professor Ken Donaldson’s team is anything to go by.  The research—published on-line today in Nature Nanotechnology—is the first to explicitly test the hypothesis that long carbon nanotubes behave like long asbestos [...]

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The passing of a science hero

by Andrew Maynard March 19, 2008

On March 18th, the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke died in his home in Sri Lanka at the age of 90.  A master developer and assembler of ideas, Clarke will be remembered fondly by many for igniting their enthusiasm for science, and how it might be used to better our lives.  His passing leaves [...]

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Invest in nano applications, and the risks will take care of themselves?

by Andrew Maynard November 4, 2007

I have on my desk a plastic bag of carbon nanotubes—2 grams of dry, 60% purity single walled carbon nanotubes to be precise—bought from Cheap Tubes Inc. for the princely sum of $80.  And I am wondering what to do with them.

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