New Materials Flashcards
Smart materials behave differently, depending on?
Conditions, such as temperature.
What is nitinol? What are its features?
Nitinol is a shape-memory metal alloy, half nickel and half titanium. When it’s cool, you can bend it like rubber. Bend it too far though, and it stays bent. But if you heat it to a certain temperature, it goes back to a ‘remembered’ shape.
What can nitinol be used for?
The frames of glasses. If you accidentally step on them, just pop them into a pool of water and they’ll return to their original shape.
It can also be used for dental braces. In the mouth, it warms and tries to return to a ‘remembered’ shape, gently pulling the teeth with it.
What are nanoparticles?
Very small particles, made up of only several hundred atoms.
What’s a fullerene?
It’s a type of nanoparticle. A fullerene is a molecule of carbon, shaped like a spherical, hollow cage. The carbon atoms are arranged in hexagonal rings. Different fullerenes contain different numbers of carbon atoms.
Do nanoparticles behave like the bulk element/chemical that they’re made from?
No, they have different properties. For example, fullerenes have different properties to large lumps of carbon.
What can fullerenes be joined together to make?
Nanotubes, they’re tiny, hollow tubes of carbon, only a few nanometers across.
What are the bonds like in nanotubes?
Strong covalent bonds, so they’re strong materials. They can be used to reinforce graphite in tennis rackets.
Nanoparticles have a ____ surface area to volume ratio, making them idea for being used as industrial ________.
Huge surface area to volume ratio
Makes them useful as industrial catalysts.
Nanotubes can also be used to make stronger, lighter _________ materials.
Building materials
Nanoparticles can be absorbed by the body quite quickly, making them useful as _____
Drugs, they can be absorbed by the cells that need them.
Nanotubes ______ electricity, so they can be used in circuit boards of computer chips.
Conduct
