1 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: Ask Anything Wednesday - Engineering, Mathematics, Computer Science
How far are we from practical uses for carbon nanotube thread and synthetic spider silk?
Comment by chilidoggo at 26/06/2024 at 18:09 UTC*
6 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Probably like ten years or so. Carbon nanotubes are what's called an enabling technology, meaning they make new things possible. These types of technologies follow this general pattern: academic research -> cutting edge applications -> general commercialization. Each phase takes ~20 years to mature.
If we look at lithium-ion batteries as an example, the initial research was done in the 1960's. It wasn't until the 1980's when they started getting commercialized for very niche applications. It took until the early 2000's for them to be used for smaller handhelds, and (knock on wood) I would say we're approaching the limit of what they can do. But each step requires innovation and builds on the supply lines of the previous step. Researchers have to synthesize everything manually until they can buy it. Commercialization requires economies of scale, but it's an enabling technology so someone is always willing to pay to be the first. Then the price slowly drops as it gets more and more commercialized and sees widespread use across industry. This also holds true for the Internet, computers, plastics, and many other things invented since WW2.
Carbon nanotubes began earnest development in the 90's. If you follow along, that means in the 2010's, they should have started to be used for niche applications (and they were/are). In 2030 the cost should be driven down enough to start to see more widespread use.
ETA: BTW, the 20 year thing is not at all a hard rule, and it might get busted to pieces in certain fields like programming or with AI. But for physical things, spinning up manufacturing requires a lot of capital and momentum.
Comment by Indemnity4 at 27/06/2024 at 00:26 UTC*
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Synthetic spider silk is an of evolution of nylon. It's the only fibre worth discussing as a comparison for bulk materials that do stuff.
It won't be a revolutionary change, it will be a subtle change as light-weight materials get lighter.
Unfortunately it's properties are very over-hyped. There are many different ways to describe toughness and it's a very competitive market. There is always another material and price/performance is tough to beat. We can always make a thicker rope of cheaper materials.
For instance, tensile strength (how much force before it breaks) of spider silk is ~1.0-1.3 GPa, but nylon is 0.9 GPa, Kevlar is ~4 GPa and boring old polyethylene is also ~2-3 GPa (UHMWPE). The polyethylene is stronger and ~80% as heavy as spider silk. So we will still be making ropes out of other materials.
There are some unique and exciting things about spider silk but unlikely to leave specialist high performance uses.