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Taking the elevator into space
Martin Schmid is not the daydreaming type. The Business Manager for Carbon Nanotubes (CNT) at Bayer MaterialScience is too level-headed a businessman for that. Get him started on his visions, however, and there’s little stopping the 47-year-old, who is responsible for developing global CNT business. “Carbon nanotubes are ideal for all areas of application in which materials with exceptional material properties are required, for instance, when the material has to be lightweight and hard-wearing.”
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| Finland’s Montreal Sports uses multi-walled carbon nanotubes (Baytubes®) from Bayer MaterialScience in its Nitro Lite ice hockey sticks. The tiny tubes make the professional sticks practically indestructible. |
These materials now make almost anything possible, and Schmid is one of the visionaries daring to take them into previously unimagined realms. Apartment buildings that extend more than two kilometers into the sky, such as the Mega-City Pyramid to be constructed in the Bay of Tokyo housing around 750,000 people, could soon be reality thanks to carbon nanotubes. The world’s current highest building, the Burj in Dubai, which is currently under construction and will eventually be 700 meters high, will look small in comparison. “Most tall building projects fail because of the mechanical properties of the building materials,” says Schmid. Concrete as it is currently used provides only limited load-bearing properties. Nanotubes can compensate for this. “They are more compact than structural steel and therefore provide greater support in lightweight construction,” says Schmid.
Another future-related topic that continues to fascinate experts in the tiny tubes is the elevator into space. It’s a crazy idea, as Schmid is happy to admit. But since NASA first mooted the idea of a “space elevator”, it has become the focus of increasing interest.
The crucial factor is the weight of the hoisting rope, which would have to be tens of thousands of kilometers long. A steel conveyor belt, once it approaches 10 km in length, tears under the strain of its own weight. The idea is to manufacture a carrier belt made of extremely lightweight, tear-resistant carbon nanotubes along which ascending and descending robots transport freight.
However, Schmid the visionary has already left the land of fantasy with several tons of his tiny products. After all, Baytubes® have to prove their value in the real world. Take the example of the ice hockey sticks manufactured with these carbon nanotubes, which do not show any signs of fatigue even after hundreds of slapshots, i.e. powerful strikes from the rear third of the rink.
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| As tough as they come: the Goldhammer. This baseball bat incorporates Baytubes® carbon nanotubes from Bayer MaterialScience. |
The carbon nanotube experts from the Schmid team are now much sought-after contacts for sports equipment manufacturers. “We use our polymer know-how to support our customers in integrating Baytubes® into various plastics for sports equipment,” says Schmid. The tiny tubes lend greater impact strength to baseball bats and tennis rackets. Thanks to the nanotubes, ski poles are 30 % more rigid and 6 % lighter than poles manufactured using conventional methods.
That’s not all. Schmid wants to increase awareness of the huge advantages of his tiny tubes and to do so he needs support, which could come in the shape of a Germany-wide initiative. “The plan is to bring together industrial CNT market participants in order to produce more examples of carbon nanotube applications,” says Schmid. Discussions are currently being held with 20 partners. Indeed, it would be the most fantastical story of all were his big ideas for the tiny tubes not to become reality.
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