Comment: North East technology gets stuck in
Feb 12 2009 by Stewart Watkins for The Journal
THE secret lies in hairy feet - millions of microscale hairs on each toe. Before you read on, I’d better make it clear that I’m talking about geckos.
Apparently the network of tiny hairs (around 2m on each toe) on the little lizards’ feet provides the answer to their amazing ability to stick to ceilings, hang by one foot, or stroll up smooth surfaces.
To get technical for a second, it seems that each hair produces a weak electrical interaction with a given surface – millions of weak interactions combine to create a strong adhesion.
So why don’t geckos just get stuck firmly in one place? Because they’ve developed a technique of walking that rolls the hairs onto the surface and then peels them off again (like we might peel off a piece of sticky tape). Understandably, how to replicate this in a synthetic adhesive has exercised the minds of scientists. How do you make a re-usable, self-cleaning tape with incredibly strong adhesion?
Carbon nanotubes may hold the answer. Discovered in 1991, these cylindrical carbon molecules exhibit extraordinary strength and a group of scientists in the USA has developed what it believes to be the strongest carbon nanotube derived adhesive to date. They reckon it’s 10 times more adhesive than geckos’ feet.
Imitating nature, they’re growing nanotubes in bundles. Dubbed ‘gecko tape’, it has fantastic adhesion, but can be peeled up perpendicular to a surface because the nanotubes lose adhesion one by one.
There’s work yet to be done before ‘gecko tape’ emerges as a commercially viable product, but some early applications of carbon nanotubes have appeared on the market – conductive fuel lines in the automotive sector, for instance.
And that’s only one sector. Claims for the potential application of carbon nanotubes range across aerospace, defence, space technology, computing and electronics.
Great conductors of electricity and heat, and, although just a few billionths of a metre across, estimated to be 100 times stronger than steel per unit of weight, the potential is huge.
But to unlock the potential a scalable manufacturing process to produce nanotubes of consistent quality and at a competitive price, which also meets regulatory and H&S protocols, is needed.
And here, in our region, a huge step forward has been taken in an outstanding example of a productive relationship between industry and academia.
A five-year collaboration between the University of Cambridge and County Durham-based speciality chemicals company Thomas Swan & Co led in 2004 to the establishment of the UK’s first commercial scale carbon nanotube plant.
Combining university research with the know-how of a company dedicated to innovative product development shows just how the North East is playing its part in commercialising emerging technologies.
Stewart Watkins is managing director of County Durham Development Company, which is driving the development of NETPark and NETPark Net.
