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Researchers working on Graphine layers, specifically graphine oxide, have discovered that it's completely impermeable to everything, except water. [ link ]
The part that caught my interest this is this: "... even the most sensitive equipment was unable to detect air or any other gas, including helium, leaking through...Helium gas is hard to stop. It slowly leaks even through a millimetre -thick window glass but our ultra-thin films completely block it. "
Think about that...something that's two atoms thick, conductive, weighing next to nothing, ductile and incredibly strong...and yet it can be used to make a helium gas cell that won't leak, at all.
The basic problem with most airships is that they lose gas, anywhere up to 10-15% by volume per hour, which necessitates replacement incurring an on-going expense. With this material, that's no longer the case. [or at least, it's vastly reduced, one would assume you'd still get leakage at seams.] Which means, with gas-cells that seldom if ever need refilling, you could use a buoyancy system based on pumping gas in or out of the cells, rather than over-filling your cells and compensating for loss by dropping water, which would mean that your airship could stay aloft forever.
Heck, imagine if you like dust-mote sized graphine-oxide spheres containing helium. They'd be light enough to float themselves, and large enough to mount nanometre motors and electronics on, and they'd stay up forever.... basically smart-dust spy-remotes. Which is kind of a scary thought!
Come to think of it though... it's easy to imagine a living cell growing a shell of graphine-oxide around it instead of a lipid bi-layer, it's super-permeable to water so you'd still need a lipid layer under it and it would need embedded receptors to permit entry of larger molecules. But it would be mechanically very resistant. Tissue built out of such cells would be like living diamond, incredibly resistant to damage thermal, chemical and mechanical, but flexible like ordinary flesh.
The part that caught my interest this is this: "... even the most sensitive equipment was unable to detect air or any other gas, including helium, leaking through...Helium gas is hard to stop. It slowly leaks even through a millimetre -thick window glass but our ultra-thin films completely block it. "
Think about that...something that's two atoms thick, conductive, weighing next to nothing, ductile and incredibly strong...and yet it can be used to make a helium gas cell that won't leak, at all.
The basic problem with most airships is that they lose gas, anywhere up to 10-15% by volume per hour, which necessitates replacement incurring an on-going expense. With this material, that's no longer the case. [or at least, it's vastly reduced, one would assume you'd still get leakage at seams.] Which means, with gas-cells that seldom if ever need refilling, you could use a buoyancy system based on pumping gas in or out of the cells, rather than over-filling your cells and compensating for loss by dropping water, which would mean that your airship could stay aloft forever.
Heck, imagine if you like dust-mote sized graphine-oxide spheres containing helium. They'd be light enough to float themselves, and large enough to mount nanometre motors and electronics on, and they'd stay up forever.... basically smart-dust spy-remotes. Which is kind of a scary thought!
Come to think of it though... it's easy to imagine a living cell growing a shell of graphine-oxide around it instead of a lipid bi-layer, it's super-permeable to water so you'd still need a lipid layer under it and it would need embedded receptors to permit entry of larger molecules. But it would be mechanically very resistant. Tissue built out of such cells would be like living diamond, incredibly resistant to damage thermal, chemical and mechanical, but flexible like ordinary flesh.
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