By Suzanne Sprague, KERA 90.1 reporter
Dallas, TX – Suzanne Sprague, Reporter: Nanoscience is the study of extremely small objects. But researchers like Ralph Merkle with the California-based Foresight Institute like to say they're studying "the next big thing."
Ralph Merkle, Vice President, Foresight Institute: This revolution is going to transform our material world. It will let us make a whole host of products less expensively, with great strength, with less pollution and in general simply with better properties all around.
Sprague: Proving nanotechnology could live up to these promises has been challenging. But in June, researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas announced a major advance with so-called carbon nanotubes, which are submicroscopic cylinders made of graphite. Ray Baughman directs UTD's Nanotech Institute.
Ray Baughman, Director, Nanotech Institure, University of Texas at Dallas: What we've discovered is that we can assemble by a special spinning process something like hundreds of trillions of these microscopic carbon nanotubes per inch of a fiber about the diameter of your hair to make fibers which are super tough and also very strong.
Sprague: These fibers are stronger than spider silk, long enough to weave into regular fabrics for clothing, and capable of storing electricity. That has ignited the attention of the Defense Department, which helped fund the UTD research. John Ferraris, the head of UTD's chemistry department, explains why.
John Ferraris, Chemistry Department, University of Texas at Dallas: Soldiers need to carry batteries to power their communications and their detection systems and stuff like that and basically they carry many pounds of batteries in the field. If you could have them wear clothing that basically serves dual purposes, one of which is energy storage, then you could reduce the weight of the batteries they carry around.
Sprague: Essentially, the batteries could be woven into a soldier's fatigues. So could antennas and communications equipment.
Ferraris: Other applications that people have talked about is basically MP3's in your shirt or DVD's on your jacket.
Sprague: With such a high-tech future in store for these nanofibers, you might expect the lab where UTD scientists created them to resemble something out of "Star Trek." But the process for spinning the tiny carbon nanotubes into long fibers at times has been relatively low-tech.
Alan Dalton, Researcher, University of Texas at Dallas: We used to spin onto a record player, as you can see here.
Sprague: Irish researcher Alan Dalton and his colleagues found the record player in a garbage dump.
Dalton: We did, yeah, we just fixed the motor on it.
Sprague: The process is a bit more advanced these days. The contraption that spins the nanotubes into nanofibers includes a motor, a glass pipe and a beaker filled with a clear liquid. As Dalton pulls the new nanofiber out of the beaker, it resembles a dark-colored slime.
Dalton: And then we just take this stuff out of the bath and let it dry and it forms a dry fiber.
Sprague: It looks something like a long strand of black dental floss. Other researchers had developed nanofibers before, but theirs were shorter and weaker. Kevin Ausman with Rice University in Houston says it was just a matter of time before someone made a breakthrough.
Kevin Ausman, Rice University, Houston: The amazing thing is that the UTD group was able to overcome various barriers that have been cropping up and getting in everybody's way for making fibers and it's just a remarkable advance.
Sprague: Ausman says it also gives hopes to the dreams of scientists, who envision nanofibers making possible everything form safer cars to an elevator into outer space.
Ausman: The elevator into space idea is basically taking the cable and running from the ground into Earth's orbit and the idea is that you can then have something basically climb the cable rather than using rocket fuel to get into space.
Sprague: Ausman and others believe nanofibers could one day be made into that cable.
Ausman: The particular fibers that were developed at UTD are not yet that strong, but it is the first indication that some of the properties of nanotubes are going to work well on large scales.
Sprague: Some scientists say they still need a better understanding of why the UTD process worked before they can start using nanofibers in consumer products. But Ralph Merkle with the Foresight Institute likes to recall that few people envisioned supersonic flight when the Wright brothers first invented the airplane. So it's hard to guess where the recent advances made on the UTD campus will take the field of nanotechnology. For KERA 90.1, I'm Suzanne Sprague.
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