Published on Jun 05, 2023
Nanomaterial use in construction, in coatings, in site remediation, and on invisible planes.The Israel-based YnetNews is Reporting that an Israeli company called Nanoflight has successfully run a test on dummy missiles that were painted with the nano-enabled coating and have shown that radar could not pick them up as missiles. The nanocoating achieves its radar trickery by absorbing the radio waves emitted by the radar and scattering them as heat energy enough so that when the radar gets the bounced back signal it is not regular enough to indicate an object. A spokesman for Nanoflight, Eli Shaldag, is quoted in the article indicating that the company is in the second stage of its development process after which they will be able to produce the coating in larger quantities.
Construction
Nanomaterial use in construction, in coatings, in site remediation, and on invisible planes. Certain nanomaterials can improve the strength of concrete, serve as self-cleaning and self-sanitizing coatings. These paving slabs are coated with titanium dioxide (TiO2). Titanium dioxide is a photo catalyst; it uses sunlight to accelerate a naturally occurring. An Israeli company has developed a paint for airplanes that can make them invisible to radar.
Air Force Research Laboratory
The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is the Air Force’s only organization wholly dedicated to leading the discovery, development, and integration of war fighting technologies for our air, space and cyberspace forces. AFRL traces its roots back to the vision of early airpower leaders who understood science as thekey to air supremacy. The passionate commitment of our people to realize this vision has helped create the world's best air, space and cyberspace force.
Mission
AFRL’s mission is leading the discovery, development and integration of affordable war fighting technologies for America’s aerospace forces. It is a full-spectrum laboratory, responsible for conceiving, planning and executing the Air Force’s science and technology program. AFRL leads a worldwide government, industry and academia partnership in the discovery, development and delivery of a wide range of revolutionary technologies. The laboratory provides leading-edge war fighting capabilities keeping our air, space and cyberspace forces the world’s best.
Personnel and Resources
The lab employs approximately 5,400 government people, including about 1,300 military and 4,100 civilian personnel. It is responsible for the Air Force’s science and technology budget of nearly $2 billion including basic research, applied research, advanced technology development and an additional $1.7 billion from AFRL customers.
Explanation
Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs), graphene and their compounds exhibit extraordinary electrical properties for organic materials. Have a huge potential in electrical and electronic applications such as photovoltaics, sensors, semiconductor devices, displays, conductors, smart textiles and energy conversion devices (e.g., fuel cells, harvesters and batteries). Applications of Carbon Nanotubes and Graphene for electronics applications. Depending on their chemical structure, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can be used as an alternative to organic or inorganic semiconductors as well as conductors, but the cost is currently the greatest restraint. In electronics, other than electromagnetic shielding, one of the first large applications for CNTs will be conductors. In addition to their high conductance, they can be transparent, flexible and even stretchable. Here, applications are for displays, replacing ITO; touch screens, photovoltaics and display bus bars and beyond.
In addition, interest is high as CNTs have demonstrated mobilities which are magnitudes higher than silicon, meaning that fast switching transistors can be fabricated. In addition, CNTs can be solution processed, i.e. printed. In other words, CNTs will be able to provide high performing devices which can ultimately be made in low cost manufacturing processes such as printing, over large areas. Challenges are material purity, device fabrication, and the need for other device materials such as suitable dielectrics. However, the opportunity is large, given the high performance, flexibility, transparency and printability. Companies that IDTechEx surveyed report growth rates as high as 300% over the next five years. New developments regarding the production of pure CNTs and the separation of conducting and semiconducting carbon nanotubes are given in this updated report. Graphene, a cheap organic material, is being enhanced by companies that are increasing its conductivity, to be used in some applications as a significantly cheaper printed conductor compared to silver ink.
