Speaker 1: Get in touch with technologies with tech Stuff from hof
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to tech stuff.
Speaker 1: This is Jonathan Strickland, Host extraordinaire, and I'm Lauren Boom.
Speaker 1: I am still here. Yeah, she's host ordinaire. Oh not true.
Speaker 1: She's just younger than I am. That's all. We're already
Speaker 1: breaking out the young old. I have discussions about this
Speaker 1: all this week. Everyone was like, the best part about
Speaker 1: your new co host is how she somehow works in
Speaker 1: the element that you are in fact old. Yes, that
Speaker 1: is the best thing about her, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Moving on to something that's not old, it's relatively new.
Speaker 1: Do you like that? Yeah? That was That was a
Speaker 1: good good transition when you point them out there, terrible
Speaker 1: anyway a plus making it bad. Thank you, car and nanotubes.
Speaker 1: That's what we wanted to talk about. Yeah, and for
Speaker 1: at first we thought that we would talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about why carbon is cool because um so so
Speaker 1: it's it's an element of incredibly uh popular element here
Speaker 1: on the planet Earth and is way up there it is.
Speaker 1: It is in fact the fourth most abundant element in
Speaker 1: the universe by mass um, after hydrogen, helium and oxygen
Speaker 1: and the second most abundant element in the human body. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we are what is known as carbon based life forms. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: And all of this is made possible because carbon atoms
Speaker 1: are these niffy little hexagons made with six electrons um.
Speaker 1: They they bond very easily with one another. Actually, if
Speaker 1: they bond in a lattice structure, which is a hexagonal structure,
Speaker 1: you have a sheet of that. So you've got a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of carbon atoms that are molecularly bonded to
Speaker 1: one another in this hexagon pattern. Here in the South.
Speaker 1: I like to call it chicken wire. Anyone who anyone
Speaker 1: who lives in any sort of rural environment who has
Speaker 1: seen chicken wire, that's kind of what a sheet of
Speaker 1: these carbon atoms in molecular structure look like. We call
Speaker 1: that sheet graphing. So let's say you've got this sheet
Speaker 1: of graphing, which is essentially two dimensional, right, because adams
Speaker 1: don't really have a lot of thickness to them, so
Speaker 1: they are you're you're talking about with and length, you're
Speaker 1: not talking about depth, And I mean that's you know,
Speaker 1: one atom thick that's thin enough to call it two dimensional. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: So you've got the sheet of graphing. Let's say, then
Speaker 1: you roll the graphing into a I don't know, burrito
Speaker 1: like structure. It's not necessarily going to be filled with
Speaker 1: cheesy beanie goodness. You know, I kind of want a
Speaker 1: carbon nano to burrito. Now. I am craving burritos like
Speaker 1: you wouldn't believe. But but no, No, that's what we
Speaker 1: call a carbon nanotube. You take that sheet of graphing,
Speaker 1: this this hexagonal molecular structure of carbon, and this is
Speaker 1: just carbon you and you roll it up and that's
Speaker 1: a carbon nanotube. But you know, carbon is kind of
Speaker 1: an amazing thing anyway, because carbon can take on so
Speaker 1: many different forms, right right, yeah, I mean it's what
Speaker 1: diamonds and graphite are both made of, and it's totally
Speaker 1: different a little little bit. I mean, you know that's
Speaker 1: you've got. You've got the hardest substance, the hardst natural
Speaker 1: substance known on Earth, right, and then you've got what
Speaker 1: you put in pencils essentially, So yeah, something soft enough
Speaker 1: that paper is paper, paper is its match? Right yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so this is something that we call allotropes. Now,
Speaker 1: an allotrope. You know, you're like, what the heck is that? Well,
Speaker 1: if you if you've studied chemistry, you know. So I
Speaker 1: apologize to all the chemists out there who are screaming
Speaker 1: at me because I'm assuming they don't know what an allotroples.
Speaker 1: It's okay, I know. You know. Also, y'all can go
Speaker 1: just get a soda for the next about So, an
Speaker 1: allotrope is any of two or more physical forms in
Speaker 1: which an element can exist. So you we have these
Speaker 1: elements that can exist in different physical forms, and carbon
Speaker 1: is a perfect example. Lauren was just pointing out diamond
Speaker 1: versus versus a graph fite. So you've got these two
Speaker 1: very different kinds of forms, but they're still the same
Speaker 1: basic element. Uh well, carbon nanotubes are very similar in
Speaker 1: that way. We'll talk a bit more about the different
Speaker 1: properties that carbon nano tubes can have and why they
Speaker 1: can have different properties, but we need to lead up
Speaker 1: to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well this entire carbon nanotube
Speaker 1: business was discovered in by Sumio Ijima, I believe is
Speaker 1: the way that you pronounce it. Um. Apologies to my
Speaker 1: Japanese teacher. Um. Although research into into creating these sheets
Speaker 1: of graphine stretches back into the nineteen fifties. Um. And
Speaker 1: all of these are they're they're actually two processes for
Speaker 1: making them. One of them I'm not extremely familiar with,
Speaker 1: and it's written all the way down at the bottom
Speaker 1: of my notes, So we're going to cover that one later.
Speaker 1: That's a wet application. The general way of making card
Speaker 1: nanotubes is a dry application, and you m thermally strip
Speaker 1: carbon atoms off of carbon bearing compounds. Wow, that sounds complicated,
Speaker 1: or at least violent and violent violent at an atomic level.
Speaker 1: That is extremely violent. Yeah, and so this is well,
Speaker 1: this is what produces these these extremely these atom thin
Speaker 1: sheets UM that that you then roll into a tiny
Speaker 1: tiny tube and by tiny tiny, I mean about a
Speaker 1: nanimeter or two in diameter UM and just you know,
Speaker 1: just to just to recover this nanimeter is one millionth
Speaker 1: of a millimeter, so it's one billionth of a meter,
Speaker 1: so it's small, right, And then you at least for
Speaker 1: the longest time, uh, these these carbon nanotubes could be
Speaker 1: at most about a millimeter long. Now that's changed recently, right, right,
Speaker 1: But I mean even a millimeter long is pretty impressive
Speaker 1: because that's that's a million times as long as it
Speaker 1: is why that's I mean, that aspect ratio is incredible.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's one of the things that really made
Speaker 1: carbon nanotubes a fascinating thing to look at, because you're thinking,
Speaker 1: if you're looking at the dimensions, by one dimension, this
Speaker 1: is incredibly tiny, and by the other, in comparison, it
Speaker 1: is ginormous. I mean, think about the technical term. Think
Speaker 1: if you saw a bus that was a million times
Speaker 1: longer than it was wide or or or long cat.
Speaker 1: If long CAT were so long that it were a
Speaker 1: million times longer. Thank you, Thank you Lauren for bringing
Speaker 1: it directly into analogy that is relatable to everybody. I
Speaker 1: was going with the bus, What was I thinking? I
Speaker 1: was mostly thinking I would not want to be behind
Speaker 1: that bus. I bet they would make really wide right
Speaker 1: terms like we're on we're on the internet. Okay, we
Speaker 1: if we don't incorporate cats into the conversation, we're going
Speaker 1: to be fired, right, We're lost. But anyway, Yes, this
Speaker 1: is one of those amazing properties of of carbon nano tubes.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I find really interesting is that
Speaker 1: carbon ano tubes will have very different proper these depending
Speaker 1: upon how they are rolled, because it's mostly the direction
Speaker 1: of the role. So it really is that how that
Speaker 1: those hexagons I was talking about in the graphing, how
Speaker 1: they are aligned in comparison to the actual role of
Speaker 1: this sheet. Uh. And depending on how you do it,
Speaker 1: it can behave like uh, like a metal, so a conductor,
Speaker 1: so it will conduct electricity. But if you roll it
Speaker 1: a different way, like at a slightly different angle. And
Speaker 1: if you guys are having trouble visualizing this, just take
Speaker 1: a sheet of paper and roll it along the short side,
Speaker 1: or roll it along the long side, or roll it
Speaker 1: along the diagonal. These are all the different kinds of
Speaker 1: ways you can roll sheets of graphing, and you get
Speaker 1: different properties. So you roll it one way, it acts
Speaker 1: metallic like a conductor, so it's conducting electricity. You roll
Speaker 1: it another way it acts like a semiconductor, which means
Speaker 1: that in some situations it does conduct electricity and in
Speaker 1: other situations it acts as an insulator. This gives it
Speaker 1: an incredible flexibility as far as applications are concerned. You
Speaker 1: can use it in all sorts of electronic applications, which
Speaker 1: we will get to in a little bit when Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it also depends on what kind of you can
Speaker 1: roll them. Into all kinds of different interesting shapes using
Speaker 1: using an atomic force microscopes also called scanning force microscopes,
Speaker 1: which are which are things that have these these tiny
Speaker 1: bitty little nanimeter probes on the end of them, and
Speaker 1: you can use them to basically poke around a nanotube
Speaker 1: until it's the right shape, the right shape for your process.
Speaker 1: This is pretty amazing. I mean, we're talking about manipulating
Speaker 1: things that are just slightly larger than the atomic scale.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's something that's really difficult to to visualize. Now,
Speaker 1: there there are some neat ways of kind of getting
Speaker 1: an idea of how precise we can be these days.
Speaker 1: My favorite we've talked about it on the Tech Stuff
Speaker 1: podcast in the past. My favorite illustration is that ibm
Speaker 1: UH several years ago used a similar type of microscope
Speaker 1: to manipulate individual atoms to all out I B M
Speaker 1: on a silicon wafer. That is a delightful. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: you're talking about being able to when when we're able
Speaker 1: to manipulate individual atoms, then obviously this is we've got
Speaker 1: this level of precision that to me is mind boggling.
Speaker 1: I mean it's really exciting. But some of the other
Speaker 1: properties of carbon nanotubes is again depending upon the way
Speaker 1: you you you roll these tubes, it can be an
Speaker 1: incredibly strong material, stronger and lighter than say, steal, hundreds
Speaker 1: of times stronger than steel. Yeah, according to to to
Speaker 1: some Well, you know, here's the thing. There's a theoretical
Speaker 1: limit to the tensile strength of carbon nanotubes, and then
Speaker 1: there's the limit that we've actually seen. Right, And as
Speaker 1: we get better about creating nanotubes than those two numbers
Speaker 1: get closer together. Right, But in general, in the experimental phase,
Speaker 1: you might not see as incredible a display of strength
Speaker 1: as you would expect when you start running the numbers
Speaker 1: via you know math. But for an example, you could
Speaker 1: take a a cable that if you were to cut
Speaker 1: the cable and look at and measure the diameter you're
Speaker 1: talking about like a one millimeter diameter of this cable,
Speaker 1: like nanotube of that size could hold approximately six thousand,
Speaker 1: four or fourteen thousand pounds. And that's and and and
Speaker 1: a millimeter, I mean, that's that's what like like about
Speaker 1: the width of a human hair. Well, a millimeter would
Speaker 1: be one millionth of a nano million times the size
Speaker 1: of a nanometer. That really brings it into perspective that
Speaker 1: I ruined my own joke. To be fair, I'm not
Speaker 1: working on very much sleep, right, I think I think
Speaker 1: a millimeter is about it's about the size of a
Speaker 1: head of a pin. Actually hair, human hair is like
Speaker 1: a few hundred thousand nanometers depending upon the person's hair,
Speaker 1: because human hair comes in a but but yes, I mean,
Speaker 1: the point being that you're talking about an incredibly thin
Speaker 1: cable that could hold an amazing amount of weight considering
Speaker 1: the dimensions of the cable. Now granted again, this is theoretical,
Speaker 1: you know, when we talk about real carbon nanotubes and
Speaker 1: the real experiences we've had, it's a little bit different
Speaker 1: from that. But the potential there is to build certain
Speaker 1: types of materials, certain types of products using this stuff
Speaker 1: that can have fantastic properties. And uh that just to
Speaker 1: be clear, we're saying stronger than steel. That's really mostly
Speaker 1: tension strength when you're talking about um other types of impact.
Speaker 1: Because carbon nanotubes are hollow, they can buckle. So let's
Speaker 1: say that you have just somehow you have managed to
Speaker 1: make one carbon nanotube that's you know, Lauren height, and
Speaker 1: then you have a force impacting that along the side
Speaker 1: of the carbon nanotube, so it's not pulling on the nanotube,
Speaker 1: it's pushing against the side, right into the chewy center.
Speaker 1: Right that chewy center might just buckle and the carbon
Speaker 1: nanotube bends, and you think, well, that was But but
Speaker 1: it's the same sort of thing, like saying the strength
Speaker 1: of a rope. The strength of the rope is how
Speaker 1: much weight it can pull, not pushing against the rope,
Speaker 1: but the middle of the middle of the rope, it
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense and it let's been pulled taut,
Speaker 1: And that's a whole different version of physics that we
Speaker 1: would need to get into right, right exactly. But but
Speaker 1: that's one of the other things to keep in mind
Speaker 1: is that even though it is an incredibly strong material
Speaker 1: and theoretically one of the strongest materials we've encountered, uh,
Speaker 1: that's only in specific use cases. It's not like you
Speaker 1: would build a carbon nanotube wall and it would be
Speaker 1: immune to everything else known to man, right, although I'm
Speaker 1: sure there are ways you could do that, like maybe
Speaker 1: with some sort of woven fabric made out of the
Speaker 1: carbon nanotubes, but an individual carbonanitude, it's not the case
Speaker 1: let's take a moment to thank our sponsor, and now
Speaker 1: we'll return to our regular at least scheduled tech stuff podcasts. Alright, so, um,
Speaker 1: so there are there are many many applications that these
Speaker 1: nanotubes can be used for. Like, like we mentioned before,
Speaker 1: their engineers are looking at incorporating them into building materials,
Speaker 1: perhaps for vehicles. I mean, imagine if you had a
Speaker 1: vehicle that was six times lighter than than the cars
Speaker 1: that are running around today, right that and that. If
Speaker 1: you're wondering why you would want a light car, one
Speaker 1: reason is that it means that you don't have to
Speaker 1: use as much fuel to push that car around. A
Speaker 1: lighter car means less work for the engine to do.
Speaker 1: If if the engine has to do less work, it
Speaker 1: theoretically needs less fuel. So we could end up with
Speaker 1: cars that are still gas powered but end up requiring
Speaker 1: far less fuel have greater efficiency. Or we could of
Speaker 1: course use it in other like hybrid cars and you
Speaker 1: know you're again you're placing or even electric vehicles. Something
Speaker 1: like this airplane or yeah, yeah, there's some great airplanes
Speaker 1: would be fantastic because, as anyone has pointed out, if
Speaker 1: you're talking about someone who's who's green conscious and they're
Speaker 1: trying very hard to live a green friendly life. So
Speaker 1: they basically need to avoid airplanes entirely. One flight on
Speaker 1: a plane and you have just like you know, you're
Speaker 1: essentially erasing any good you're doing your entire you know,
Speaker 1: green life at home. And that's that's just a hard
Speaker 1: reality of what it takes to move. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: a great example. You actually pointed out something else. A
Speaker 1: future use of this technology could be something that we
Speaker 1: did an episode of tech Stuff about a few years ago.
Speaker 1: Space elevators. Space elevators. Yeah, these are these are really
Speaker 1: nifty things. If you guys have not heard of this, um,
Speaker 1: you you should have by now, you're a bad tech
Speaker 1: stuff listener. But that's okay, because you can fix that.
Speaker 1: I still love you, Yes, yes, no, No, I just
Speaker 1: I had to. I had to moderate a Facebook thread
Speaker 1: the other day. I am being the social media here.
Speaker 1: It has to work, So I'm if people are are
Speaker 1: being jerks on Facebook, they I'm the one who has
Speaker 1: to clean it up. So don't be jerks on Facebook, y'all. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a very special episode of tech Stuff. But no
Speaker 1: space elevator. No, well, I mean Okay, the point of
Speaker 1: my story here, I've started to stutter. Excellent. Um, the
Speaker 1: point of my of my story was that you shouldn't
Speaker 1: be a jerk on Facebook. Now, No, I had a point.
Speaker 1: My point, Well, let me let me let me at
Speaker 1: least explain what space elevator is. How about that? Because
Speaker 1: I'm dying, you're here, I can, I can at least
Speaker 1: give it a shot. So let's say, let's let's say
Speaker 1: you put an object into orbit, stationary orbit around the Earth. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it has to be uh, it's the object is
Speaker 1: sort of a counterweight, essentially, So you've got a counterweight
Speaker 1: orbiting the Earth, and the thing connecting the counterweight to
Speaker 1: Earth is a very strong cable, and you use this
Speaker 1: elevator which is essentially attached to the cable, to transport
Speaker 1: in anything. Really, it could be people, although cargo would
Speaker 1: be a lot easier than people, because with people you
Speaker 1: gotta worry about, I don't know, keeping them alive and
Speaker 1: stuff moving them. Yeah, I guess if we're moving dead people,
Speaker 1: it's okay. So if we want to have a space
Speaker 1: cemetery out there, I wouldn't mind that, except that I
Speaker 1: actually plan on donating my body to science fiction. Uh
Speaker 1: so the uh, the yeah, you have an elevator that
Speaker 1: has this counterweight. Other, Okay, you're just that now I'm
Speaker 1: with you. I'm with you, and keep going so the
Speaker 1: elevator can travel up the cable. The the nice thing
Speaker 1: about this is the based on this design, you might
Speaker 1: be using things like lasers to actually power this elevator. Uh.
Speaker 1: The elevator wouldn't have things on it like thrusters, like
Speaker 1: rocket thrusters, the way we would with a a traditional
Speaker 1: rocket ship to get stuff into space. It would mean
Speaker 1: that it would take uh less energy in theory to
Speaker 1: deliver payloads to utter space. And you wouldn't have to
Speaker 1: worry about problems like uh, catastrophic failure when you're talking
Speaker 1: about propellants that can be incredibly dangerous under the wrong conditions.
Speaker 1: So and and also, I mean, just like we were saying,
Speaker 1: if you if you take one airline flight, you're basically
Speaker 1: erasing the entire good that you've done on your carbon
Speaker 1: foot print all year. You know, the cost of launch
Speaker 1: in terms of fuel and and just people and manpower
Speaker 1: is is ten thousand dollars per pound. That's per kilogram.
Speaker 1: That's a bunch. So you've got you've got this need
Speaker 1: to find a cheaper way to get stuff into outer
Speaker 1: space if in fact we want to do that thing
Speaker 1: that which we do, I mean I do, yeah, because
Speaker 1: there's lots of fascinating stuff out there. So space elevators
Speaker 1: are a good way of doing that. But one of
Speaker 1: the problems is that how do you create a cable
Speaker 1: that's going to be strong enough and small enough to
Speaker 1: make this a reality? And carbonana tubes might very well
Speaker 1: be the way that we solve that problem. Now, for
Speaker 1: a long time everyone said, okay, well here's the barrier,
Speaker 1: the barriers that we've got this on obtainium. We've got this. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we can make carbonano tubes, but there are a millimeter
Speaker 1: long at most, and so we don't have to make
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of them and tie the ends together
Speaker 1: teeny little bows in order to make a big, long
Speaker 1: one for the cable, but relatively ineffective. Yea. So we'll
Speaker 1: get into some some new forms of manufacturer that have
Speaker 1: made that less of a problem. But even now we're
Speaker 1: still talking about this is science fiction as far as
Speaker 1: we're concerned. It's it's feasible, but not possible given our
Speaker 1: technology right now, right now. But there are other applications
Speaker 1: that we could use carbonanotubes and including things like, uh
Speaker 1: like conductive plastics, So we can make electronics out of
Speaker 1: plastic materials and run carbon ano tubes through the plastic,
Speaker 1: creating them a conductive layer, so that you can actually
Speaker 1: make products even smaller than they are today. So instead
Speaker 1: of having a casing that is covering up the electronics,
Speaker 1: the case would be part of the electronics. You could
Speaker 1: have you know, a credit card, thin smartphone. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that would that would turn More's law right on its
Speaker 1: point he had. Yep, yep, there's some pretty neat stuff
Speaker 1: that could potentially happen. We also could have things like
Speaker 1: smart fabrics, so clothing that could have carbon nanotubes in
Speaker 1: it that might do things like monitor conditions like it
Speaker 1: could it could end up powering various sensors. This would
Speaker 1: obviously be very important in uniforms like space suits or
Speaker 1: first responders outfits for things like firefighters, things like that,
Speaker 1: you know, things that that could benefit from this. But
Speaker 1: even from a more consumer standpoint, we could even have
Speaker 1: I don't know, like clothing that tells you how active
Speaker 1: you are and whether or not you're getting enough exercise.
Speaker 1: Don't even have to put on a speedometer a little
Speaker 1: Nike fit wristband, right you, you'd be fine. You just
Speaker 1: you know, you put on your clothing and that tells
Speaker 1: you or it may say things like, for Heaven's sake,
Speaker 1: wash me. You know that that goes out to everyone
Speaker 1: I went to college with. There other clothing applications. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe not so much for daily use, but but carbonanotubes
Speaker 1: could be used to create some really terrific body armor.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, sure, yeah. Again, we're talking about the incredible strength,
Speaker 1: and if it's woven the right way, you're talking about
Speaker 1: something that could have a great applications for anyone who
Speaker 1: might be in military or law enforcement to provide a
Speaker 1: level of protection that is really, you know, unheard of
Speaker 1: at this point. I mean, we've got some great technology
Speaker 1: out there to keep people protected, but this would be
Speaker 1: a step of a huge step above that, assuming that
Speaker 1: we were able to, uh to find the right way
Speaker 1: of weaving it. You know, part of the problem here
Speaker 1: is that we're talking about a material that's still a
Speaker 1: little challenging to manufacture, especially in mass quantities. But there
Speaker 1: have been improvements in carbon nano to manufacturing processes very recently. Yeah. Actually, um,
Speaker 1: we were, we were, and you know we're recording this
Speaker 1: in early January, UM two thousand thirteen. And act really
Speaker 1: just today the Internet told me that, um that Rice
Speaker 1: University has announced a macroscopic hundreds of meters long mass
Speaker 1: producible carnin carbon nanotube thread. Yeah. This is this is
Speaker 1: incredible news because again, before we were talking about nanotubes
Speaker 1: that were a millimeter long, and that was considered huge.
Speaker 1: Now we're talking hundreds of meters. That is such an
Speaker 1: enormous leap that it it boggles my mind. And it's
Speaker 1: all through this this wet method that they used to
Speaker 1: manufacture carbon nanotubes. Yeah, wet spinning method in which, um,
Speaker 1: and I'm sorry, I'm going to read this directly from
Speaker 1: my notes, which is probably a terrible thing to do,
Speaker 1: but in which clumps of nanotubes are dissolved in a
Speaker 1: bath of some acid stuff squirted through small holes to
Speaker 1: create long strands, and then the strands are wound into
Speaker 1: a big spool until they dry out. That's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: So really, the way I understand that is that we
Speaker 1: have dissolved the carbon nanotubes until they're essentially a liquid.
Speaker 1: You put them into what is essentially a nozzle, you
Speaker 1: squirted out in what is essentially like a giant icing
Speaker 1: thing where your favorite kind of cake, and you get
Speaker 1: this long string of carbon nanotube. That's exactly the way
Speaker 1: you want it to be until you get that you
Speaker 1: spoil it up and there you got you got a
Speaker 1: hundreds hundreds of meters long carbon nanotube. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: the thickness of a human hair. Um uh. And and
Speaker 1: not like I was saying earlier that you know, that's
Speaker 1: that's big. That's a bunch of a bunch of space
Speaker 1: things measurements of stuff. Yeah, it's much much larger than say,
Speaker 1: you know, on a single carbon nanotube would normally be
Speaker 1: you know, I get one billionth of a of a
Speaker 1: meter in diameter. It's larger than that. Yes, And there
Speaker 1: there's a video and on the Internet of of an
Speaker 1: LED lamp being both suspended and powered by this thread, right,
Speaker 1: so so that it's this tiny like human hair with
Speaker 1: cord that's holding a a lightbulb, and the light bulb
Speaker 1: is lit because power is going through and and it's
Speaker 1: it's completely suspended that way. So you think about that,
Speaker 1: and you're like, all right, so we've got this very thin,
Speaker 1: very strong stuff that could provide power across it. This
Speaker 1: could revolutionize electronics. Oh absolutely. And there's also there's also
Speaker 1: been a bunch of research into health applications for this. UM.
Speaker 1: It can be used as a delivery system for drugs
Speaker 1: and vitamins because carbon nanotubes are are so bitty that
Speaker 1: they can they can really get in there, you know,
Speaker 1: they you can you can attach you can attach stuff
Speaker 1: to them and send them in through things and and
Speaker 1: be really effective as an antioxidant. UM they naturally pick
Speaker 1: up free radicals in UH in blood systems. Oh my, um,
Speaker 1: you can. One of one of the really cool bits
Speaker 1: of research that I saw had people UM sticking an
Speaker 1: antibody onto the end of a nanotube UM and then
Speaker 1: letting a blood sample pass through it, and different kinds
Speaker 1: of tumor cells or viruses will get trapped by that
Speaker 1: antibody and then UM, so you can you can test
Speaker 1: for all kinds of things without having to do any
Speaker 1: expensive lab work in the field in a couple hours. Interesting.
Speaker 1: Of course, this also leads to a dark discussion and
Speaker 1: that carbon nanotubes may also be depending upon their their structure,
Speaker 1: may be extremely hazardous to our health. And uh, there
Speaker 1: are a couple of reasons for this. One is that
Speaker 1: when you're talking about things that are on the nano scale,
Speaker 1: their properties change fairly dramatically. You can have materials that
Speaker 1: act as conductors in the macro scale, but on the
Speaker 1: nano scale they might be insulators. You also may have
Speaker 1: things that on the macro scale are perfectly safe, but
Speaker 1: on the nano scale are toxic. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that concerned people fairly early on in the research
Speaker 1: of carbon nanotubes, and has been studied extensively since then,
Speaker 1: is that carbon nanotubes, depending again on the specific structure
Speaker 1: that you've designed for them, bear a striking resemblance to
Speaker 1: this substance called asbestos. And and for for for those
Speaker 1: young uns out there, this was an asbestos is a
Speaker 1: substance that used to be used in a lot of insulation. Um. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's fire retardant. Fire retardant, which which is great, I
Speaker 1: mean that's less fire good. Yes, yes, fire fire bad,
Speaker 1: as Frankenstein's Monster taught us. However, um, you know, it
Speaker 1: was made up of these of these small pointy particles
Speaker 1: that people would aspirate and it would get stuck in
Speaker 1: the linings of your lungs and your other internal organs
Speaker 1: and cause cause lesions and metalalithiomia. No, that was not
Speaker 1: the word mesol. Yes, yes, the sea it's a form
Speaker 1: of cancer. Cancer that the lining around your organs. That's
Speaker 1: specifically what what we're talking about here, but but more
Speaker 1: specifically the lungs, because you would breathe in these particles,
Speaker 1: and they're small enough so that they can, uh, they
Speaker 1: can infect a cell. Essentially, they can, uh, they can
Speaker 1: penetrate a cell. That's the best word for it, penetrate
Speaker 1: a cell. But they are large enough so that the
Speaker 1: body's immune system cannot easily get rid of them, which
Speaker 1: is why it becomes a very dangerous substance. And the
Speaker 1: carbon anotubes bear some physical resemblance to those needle pointing fibers. Now,
Speaker 1: according to at least some research, I was reading one
Speaker 1: report that was kind of interesting, and I cannot pretend
Speaker 1: that I follow it completely because my my medical knowledge
Speaker 1: is uh, plucky and adventury. No wait, I'm sorry, that's
Speaker 1: my military knowledge. Um by the very model of a
Speaker 1: modern tech stuff podcaster. They it was from an online
Speaker 1: library is actually from the Cancer and Aging Handbook, And
Speaker 1: the study suggested that carbon nanotubes could penetrate cells, but
Speaker 1: they did so in a different way than as best
Speaker 1: this particles did, Like they both could penetrate cells, and
Speaker 1: they both could cause similar outcomes. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: there is some evidence that carbon nanotubes could in fact
Speaker 1: be carcinogenic, but they do it in a different mechanism,
Speaker 1: Like there's a different mechanism for how they are they
Speaker 1: get enveloped by other cells or by cells I should
Speaker 1: say not other cells, but by cells. And so the
Speaker 1: research actually suggests that there might be ways of creating
Speaker 1: carbon nanotubes where they do not behave in this way
Speaker 1: where they are instead of causing cancer, they just kind
Speaker 1: of hang out, right, And that's one of the other
Speaker 1: problems about carbonano tubes is they have this bio persistence,
Speaker 1: meaning that if they are inside a biological entity, they
Speaker 1: do not tend to break down right there. They're so
Speaker 1: strong and sturdy. Yeah, they don't react. They're nonreactive when
Speaker 1: it comes to that too, So you don't have it
Speaker 1: just you know, decomposed into some other material or get
Speaker 1: absorbed and then you know they're harmless, that's the problem.
Speaker 1: They don't do that. So, but there might be ways
Speaker 1: of of engineering carbon nanotubes so that they are not hazardous.
Speaker 1: And also all research I've read has suggested that it's
Speaker 1: not that we shouldn't go into making carbon nanotubes. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's most people are saying that, yes, it's a danger,
Speaker 1: but these things are so useful that we we almost
Speaker 1: can't afford to to not continue researching them. And that
Speaker 1: most most of the most of the danger comes to
Speaker 1: people who are going to be working in development development
Speaker 1: labs creating them. Um And that there are definitely lots
Speaker 1: of different air filters and other precautions that could be
Speaker 1: used to to lessen the danger to these important workers.
Speaker 1: Um And And that ultimately we may find ways of
Speaker 1: creating these as you know, so safely that it becomes
Speaker 1: a non issue. Um. Not that you know, we can
Speaker 1: ignore it. That's the important part is don't ignore the
Speaker 1: fact that there's a danger, but but understand that there
Speaker 1: may be ways of working around down that so that
Speaker 1: we minimize the danger to ourselves while maximizing the benefit
Speaker 1: that these things could provide us. So, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's you know, one of the things that definitely
Speaker 1: we have to keep in mind about technology. I mean,
Speaker 1: just like your computer at home, assuming you have one,
Speaker 1: has material in it that can be extremely toxic if
Speaker 1: you are if you're exposed to it directly. But computers
Speaker 1: are incredible benefit too. It's just that it's under specific
Speaker 1: circumstances that you can become very dangerous. Like let's say
Speaker 1: you catch it, it catches on fire, that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: or you're taking it apart to try and harvest the
Speaker 1: various uh metals and minerals that are inside your computer.
Speaker 1: That would be a bad thing to do. Don't do that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean it's just one of those things
Speaker 1: where you've got to keep in mind the various scenarios
Speaker 1: and uh and and remember to to treat it carefully. So, um, guys,
Speaker 1: if you're out there playing with carbonanotubes, just you know,
Speaker 1: be careful. Yeah, do you know what you do in
Speaker 1: your spare time? Leave it to the professionals. Probably today,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's probably the important important thing there.
Speaker 1: But I find this this whole area of study very interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, it does have the the potential to completely
Speaker 1: revolutionize everything that has to do with electronics. I mean,
Speaker 1: you sit there and you think about how incredible things
Speaker 1: are right now, go and go to like ce Yes
Speaker 1: one year and take a look at a TV, and
Speaker 1: you see how thin they've become. Well, with this sort
Speaker 1: of technology, they could be even even, you know, so
Speaker 1: thin that when you mounted against the wall, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to see the difference between the wall and
Speaker 1: the TV. I mean, that's that's how thin we're talking
Speaker 1: basically a sticker. Just yeah, think. I mean, it's gonna
Speaker 1: take a while before we ever get there, but we
Speaker 1: can at least get to a point where it's gonna
Speaker 1: look like a piece of paper against the wall. I mean,
Speaker 1: so yeah, it's it's exciting stuff. I can't wait to
Speaker 1: see what happens. Me neither groovy. While we are of
Speaker 1: the same mind, excellent for once, never happen again. Guys,
Speaker 1: write it down. So I suggest if any of you
Speaker 1: out there in our podcast listening world have suggestions for
Speaker 1: topics that Lauren and I should cover in future episode
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff and argue about. Yep, that'd be great.
Speaker 1: Send us a message. You can write us. Our email
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