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A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

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Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

#31

Post by sph »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #10
throwup238 wrote: post #4

> While composites might seem like a futuristic technology, in many ways, they hark back to millions of years of human and even pre-human material technology. Wood, after all, is the original composite material, as it’s composed of long and short fibers glued together by other substances—much like modern synthetic composites are often made up of carbon fiber held together by epoxy resins. Wood was a chief enabler of…

Wood was a chief enabler of the success of our species Wood was the chief enabler of trees. Trees have to be big, strong, lightweight, and bendable. Homogeneous materials won't work for that application. You need a composite. So evolution invented one. Even more amazing: Trees 3D print themselves out of carbon dioxide.

> Even more amazing: Trees 3D print themselves out of carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide and low-entropy energy in the form of solar light.

Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

#32

Post by nakedneuron »

bartc wrote: post #18
shiroiushi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Trees have to be big, strong, lightweight, and bendable. Homogeneous materials won't work for that application. Why wouldn't titanium work for that application? (Assume that somehow the plant can move nutrients and fluids around some other way.) Or even steel, as long as it's not solid? Obviously, nature can't produce hollow steel tubes, but lots of metals satisfy your requirement list here.

Trees did not evolve with bountiful access to titanium, but it would be interesting to ponder how they would have evolved on a metal planet

Carbon in the form of carbon dioxide as raw material is literally instantly available and the resulting "composite" is lightweight. This is not to say nature always considers recycling beforehand. Nature needed to invent fungi to break up this carbon dump. Carbon era is named thanks to this fact. And it's tempting to think nature "came up" with humankind to make the humongous carbon dump of the carbon era useful once again.

Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

#33

Post by nyanpasu64 »

aranchelk wrote: post #27

Nitpick time: > Modern composites, starting with Bakelite AFAIK Bakelite is a resin, not a composite. No mention of fiberglass, which had been used for many decades before carbon fiber went into widespread use. > composites—which are amalgamations of a variety of fibers, embedded in a variety of plastics Steel reinforced concrete is a composite and doesn’t fit this definition.

I looked it up on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakelite) which said:

> Because molded Bakelite incorporated fillers to give it strength, it tended to be made in concealing dark colors.[9]

Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

#34

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

bartc wrote: post #18
shiroiushi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Trees have to be big, strong, lightweight, and bendable. Homogeneous materials won't work for that application. Why wouldn't titanium work for that application? (Assume that somehow the plant can move nutrients and fluids around some other way.) Or even steel, as long as it's not solid? Obviously, nature can't produce hollow steel tubes, but lots of metals satisfy your requirement list here.

Trees did not evolve with bountiful access to titanium, but it would be interesting to ponder how they would have evolved on a metal planet

Titanium is more abundant than nickel and New Caledonia's plants have evolved to deal with the latter in unique ways.

Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

#35

Post by tlb »

aranchelk wrote: post #27

Nitpick time: > Modern composites, starting with Bakelite AFAIK Bakelite is a resin, not a composite. No mention of fiberglass, which had been used for many decades before carbon fiber went into widespread use. > composites—which are amalgamations of a variety of fibers, embedded in a variety of plastics Steel reinforced concrete is a composite and doesn’t fit this definition.

Most Bakelite products were a molded combination of resin and sawdust. Though there were also pure resin products.

Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

#37

Post by adrianN »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #23
throwaway920102 wrote: post #11

Not a single mention in the article of their biggest downside, environmental costs.

There are many ways to be environmentally costly... Can you be more specific?

Leave some steel around and it oxidizes away while otherwise being mostly harmless. Leave some carbon fiber embedded in resin around and it leaches endocrine disruptors and eventually turns into a pile of microplastic.

Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

#38

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

ranger_danger wrote: post #36
hoppyhoppy2 wrote: post #2

https://archive.ph/caK9m

mitmflared

flared yourself. just use another DNS.

edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38373137

root cause: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=cloudflare+archive

Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

#39

Post by dyauspitr »

ghaff wrote: post #14

As a hiker/outdoors person, materials evolution has been a fantastic improvement in so many ways. Even lightweight traveling.

Yep, you can now go camping with your gear being under 10 lbs. Your tent and sleeping bag together can be under 3lbs.

Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

#40

Post by solardev »

ghaff wrote: post #14

As a hiker/outdoors person, materials evolution has been a fantastic improvement in so many ways. Even lightweight traveling.

Probably not great for the environment though, with plastic microfibers washing into our oceans and DWR coatings being toxic and leaching into waterways.

Compared to, say, what they climbed Everest with originally, yeah, our gear today is lighter, cheaper, more effective, but also more environmentally impactful and much less degradable.

It's all just byproducts of the oil industry. We're a lot more comfortable now, but it didn't come free.

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