Researchers get carbon nanotube wiring to conduct more like copper
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What’s better than subscribing to copper wiring you already own?
Wiring that degrades over time.
That you also subscribe to.
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Copper is also very expensive, and aluminum is extremely energy-intensive to produce. They both need supporting messenger wiring (steel cable) to support them when used over large spans. Carbon, though, is cheap and ubiquitous, and if carbon wiring is anywhere near as strong as steel while still being lighter, it would make aerial wiring much, much cheaper to make, al least from a materials standpoint.
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Given that AlCl3 is alumininium trichloride I was sure that AlCl4- would be something like alumininium tetrachloride... Instead TIL that it’s actually called tetrachloroaluminate.
Sometimes the logic behind systematic nomenclature totally escapes me![:\](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/civis/data/assets/smilies/slash-1x.png "Slash :\")
Sometimes the logic behind systematic nomenclature totally escapes me
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Hmmm, I'm no chemist, but I'm thinking the 4cl-aluminate is a good electron donor for exactly the same reason that it's reactive.
There could still be a somewhat-decent donor that has enough lifetime to be practical, but it seems like that would mean making your cables a lot thicker.
There could still be a somewhat-decent donor that has enough lifetime to be practical, but it seems like that would mean making your cables a lot thicker.
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You don't want this for electric wiring, you want one of the follow-on discoveries for electric wiring. The ones with the same performance as copper.
Sometimes the Ars commentariat has a real problem understanding the purpose of research.
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It's lighter and stronger. That matters for some applications.
And whereas copper is generally getting more expensive as everybody moves towards energy electrification and data center buildout, carbon wiring is on a cost learning curve where its still getting cheaper to make, and it may not be long before it's actually cheaper than copper.
More info on Galvorn (carbon wiring): https://dexmat.com/blog/carbon-nanotube-wire/
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IIRC, there are now some forms of power transmission wire that are using a polymer cable (Kevlar? aramid? something like that, anyway) as the core instead of steel, partly from the lighter weight and higher tensile strength but also for the better resistance to elongation from heat. That lets the operator run more current for a given cable sag, which is a promising outlook for increasing grid capacity without the need to new tower construction and obtaining new rights of way.
Depending on what properties this family of doped nanotube construction has, that might allow a future transmission wire to skip the separate non-conducting supporter entirely. Of course, gotta see if there's a way around the degradation issue.
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So, it's lighter but doesn't like water ? Use it for satellites.
Also:
EU : "Yeah, nice research, but we're out of funds next month"
T47 admin : "science like this is useless! Cut it!"
China in 20 years : "since we were handed a monopoly in high-conduction carbon nanotubes, pay up!"
Also:
EU : "Yeah, nice research, but we're out of funds next month"
T47 admin : "science like this is useless! Cut it!"
China in 20 years : "since we were handed a monopoly in high-conduction carbon nanotubes, pay up!"
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This is not good for satellites either because as noted in the article, even without the water, it decomposes too quickly. Copper has a really fortunate combination of characteristics for wire - it's highly conductive, inherently stable in isolation and highly resistant to corrosion (so resistant you can use it for water pipes that many years) and it's ductile and resistant to cracking, and you can plate it onto stronger metals.
You can find materials that beat it on any of those parameters, but to replace copper you've got to get close to it on all of them in one material. That might not be possible.
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High tension lines (the kind that carry hundreds of thousands of volts and lots of amps between those big ugly towers) aren't usually made of copper, they're made of aluminum reinforced with steel. And Aluminum is...wait for it...about half as good a conductor as copper.
As the article says (if you read it to the end), with "high-capacity transmission lines... getting the same performance with a lower weight could save money on the support towers needed."
And as others have said in the comments, satellites, where every kilogram counts.
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Aluminum is much, much lighter than copper while also being much cheaper even after taking into account that you need more of it than you would need copper for the same conductance. It also resists corrosion (due to the oxide layer) better than copper does.
A replacement for high-tension wiring will need to survive extreme temperature shifts, impacts from hail and birds, some amount of mechanical movement and vibration, be easily serviceable in remote conditions (transported, rigged, spliced, etc), withstand occasional lightning strikes (the grid safely grounds strikes and re-energizes automatically) and survive all this for decades to become a viable contender. There is still a long way to go.
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All true but it is not necessary that a single material fullfils all those requirements. A conductor with a composite structure may fullfil it both better and cheaper in the end.
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weirdly, i had seen the copper bit of an tv aerial cable turned into what looks like paste / powder a bunch of years ago.
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There is another less obvious benefit of aluminium. Although it has about 60% of the conductivity of copper, not only does a cable of the same conductivity weigh less - because 2.7g/cc versus 8.96 implies it would need about half the mass - it has a larger surface area which means significantly better heat dissipation. Add to this the convenience of aluminium forming its own corrosion resistant surface layer and it is clear that nanotube conductors have, as it were, a very steep hill to climb.
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The cholrine atoms didn't change their state so they're still -ide. It's the aluminum that's responsible for forming the ion so it's got to be something-something-aluminate.Given that AlCl3 is alumininium trichloride I was sure that AlCl4- would be something like alumininium tetrachloride... Instead TIL that it’s actually called tetrachloroaluminate.
Sometimes the logic behind systematic nomenclature totally escapes me
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Something that I think most people will be surprised to learn is that aircraft wiring is primarily aluminum
Edit: Tefzel is the insulating jacket
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Multistrand wires can increase the surface area a bit. But yes, it's the combination of thermal conductivity, electrical resistivity, and density that all play a role in determining what conductor is used. For power generation, the limit is how far the steel support will stretch as it gets hotter - leading to lower swags between poles (and hence higher poles). At some future point where we can make kilometers-long cables of carbon-fiber weaves, we may not even bother to use it for its conductivity. Its strength may simply be high enough to push more current through aluminum cores at higher temperatures.
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If you wrapped layers of this around aluminium say, how would the current flow split between the layers - would it behave the same way as metals where all the current flows in the outside? I.e. is that a universal conductor property or a metallic conductor property…
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Silver plated wiring is also used in aircraft because silver is an even better conductor per mass than copper, so you can use thinner (lighter and more compact) wires. There are other useful properties. The biggest downside is that the silver tends to corrode badly if the wire is damaged, and this led to a number of electrical fires and equipment failures.
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For long distance wiring, it definitely is required to meet all those requirements. Also for home wiring. Especially the flexibility and overloading and repair requirements. Not doing so means houses burn down, or wiring has to be replaced, which is going to more than eat up any cost difference. For space, you can dispense with the vulnerability to water but it has to be chemically stable in a vacuum environment and all the intermediate environments between manufacture and launch.
As for it being cheaper, it might be some day. Today, it's an expensive to manufacture experimental material. Some of those eventually become industrial materials. Many don't because there's no inexpensive manufacturing process.
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Hmm, you're right. It's the insulation around the wiring I'm thinking of. What's the aircraft wiring with Tefzel jacket? I haven't worked on an airfield in 30 years. Edit: as I recall, it's a lower-extrusion evolution of Teflon.
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It depends. It has to do with the electrical fields. For AC, current flows along the skin of the conductor. However, for DC, the current flows through the entire thickness of the conductor. You can put a higher current on the same wire with DC. This is why many long-distance transmission lines were switched to DC despite the cost of converting between AC and DC and the other drawbacks of high-power DC.
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The best way to reduce the weight and complexity of aircraft wiring is to replace discrete connections with a serial bus. Same thing that CANBUS does in cars.
Fiber optic was tried because of the lightness and immunity to electrical interference, but fiber optics don't cope well with vibration, which pretty much rules out airplanes.
Now, if nanotubes can handle vibrations, they would be an excellent replacement for wires that carry data because usually the current involved is very low.
Fiber optic was tried because of the lightness and immunity to electrical interference, but fiber optics don't cope well with vibration, which pretty much rules out airplanes.
Now, if nanotubes can handle vibrations, they would be an excellent replacement for wires that carry data because usually the current involved is very low.
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