One of the most important things that you carry on a daily basis is your wallet. It houses all of the essential things you need to have on your person each day to function in modern society. Why then would anyone settle for anything less than the best when considering what to carry things like your credit cards and IDs in?
The best material your wallet could be made out of is carbon fiber. Stronger than steel, carbon fiber offers protection like no other at a fraction of the weight. It's also much easier to store in your pocket as the corners are not nearly as sharp as metal wallets, preventing any chance of it cutting through your pocket and dropping to the ground without you knowing about it!
Clearly, carbon fiber is the way to go for your next wallet. But if you’re still unsure on whether or not to pull the trigger on it, here are 5 reasons why you have to own a carbon fiber wallet.
What is Carbon Fiber?
Carbon fiber is a polymer, which basically means that it is a conglomeration of a lot of carbon molecules tightly put together. It’s very strong and stiff for how light weight it is. In fact, it’s 5 times stronger than steel!
The first person to begin experimenting with creating something like carbon fiber was Thomas Edison. In 1879, Edison recorded the first attempt at creating a polymer like carbon fiber by baking together cotton threads and bamboo slivers to produce a carbonized filament. While this wasn’t as strong as modern carbon fiber, it was the first step towards creating it.
By the 1950s, carbon fiber began to be mass produced in places like Cleveland, OH. That carbon fiber was much stronger than the stuff Edison was creating, but still was lacking. It only had about 20% carbon baked into its fibers, which meant that there was still room for improvement.
Carbon fiber production made a breakthrough in England during the 1960s. Scientists came up with a new way for creating carbon fiber, making it much stronger than its predecessors by far!
How is Carbon Fiber Produced?
Creating carbon fiber is a multi-stage task. Part of the process involves subjecting the fibers used for creating the carbon fiber to very high heat, creating a chemical reaction. The key is to not allow the fibers to be exposed to oxygen as they’re heated. This prevents burning, which will ruin the fibers if it occurs. Exposed to high heat without oxygen forces the atoms of the fibers to vibrate violently, shaking off excess atoms until the only thing left is carbon. This process is known as carbonization.
Once the carbonization phase of production has been completed, the newly formed polymer is then layered, spun, and treated by the factory to produce carbon fiber for a wide range of applications.
What are the Properties and Advantages of Carbon Fiber?
As mentioned earlier, carbon fiber is 5 times stronger than steel. Additionally, it’s also 5 times lighter than steel. This makes carbon fiber ideal for all sorts of applications where it could potentially replace steel.
Carbon fiber is used in all sorts of products today. Some common ones that you’ll find carbon fiber being used in include:
- Airplane wings
- Bike frames
- Car parts
In fact, according to a study done by the US Department of Energy, carbon fiber could be used to reduce the weight of cars by up to 50%, which would result in a significant increase in each car’s fuel efficiency. This shows how strong carbon fiber is, because if the US is willing to fund a study for the utility of carbon fiber in passenger vehicles, it must be a worthwhile material due to how much dependency the US has on fossil fuels!
5 Reasons to Own a Carbon Fiber Wallet
As mentioned earlier, carbon fiber is incredibly lightweight. Now, we did discuss how it compares to steel, but what about aluminum? It’s far more likely that you’ll find aluminum wallets on the market compared to steel, so is carbon fiber really that much better than metal?
In short, yes. Carbon fiber is lighter than aluminum by a factor of 2! A lightweight wallet carries much more comfortably in your pocket because it’s not swinging around nearly as much as a heavier wallet. As you’re walking around town, the swinging in your pocket from a heavier wallet made out of aluminum or even leather can get pretty old pretty quick. With carbon fiber wallets, that problem is a thing of the past!
2) High-Tensile Strength
In addition to being incredibly lightweight, carbon fiber also has a high tensile strength rating. Tensile is how well a material stands up against tension without breaking. For comparison’s sake, an example of something with low tensile strength might be a match or a porcelain cup. These things can break easily when exposed to tension.
On the other hand, steel is a great example of a material that has high tensile strength. Steel has a tensile strength of 400 megapascals, which is equivalent to over 58,000 pounds per square inch (psi). Compare this to the bite force of a snapping turtle, which is about 1,000 psi and you can see just how strong steel is! Now, remember that carbon fiber’s tensile strength is about 5 times that of steel. We can all agree that this means that carbon fiber is an incredibly strong and durable product!
3) Luxury Aesthetic
If you’ve ever seen a carbon fiber wallet, they look amazing. The designs that are burned into the wallet from the carbonization process are incredibly beautiful. Some may stay away from other metal wallets because they haven’t been too impressed with their overall look. This can be from a variety of factors such as using metals that aren’t treated for oxidation prohibition to poor machining of the pieces that go towards making the wallet.
Carbon fiber wallets don’t have this problem. Carbon fiber will never rust since the molecules that would react to oxidation are all shaken away during the carbonization process. So what you’re left with is a sleek looking material that will stay in top condition throughout the course of its life.
One of the best and worst parts of living in the 21st century is tap to pay credit cards. Tap to pay has increased the speed of transactions in person the likes of which society has never seen before. This is made possible by the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) that is built into most modern credit cards. Whenever you go to pay for something by tapping your card on a card reader, your account information is scanned in an instant and a transaction is made. What that means is that you can pay for your goods and get on with your day in the blink of an eye. Who doesn’t love that?
Well, the biggest issue that has come up with the advent of tap to pay technology are bad actors using that same technology to steal your credit card info without you knowing. In wallets that don’t have RFID blocking capabilities, all a thief has to do is walk near you with their own RFID reader and they’re able to take your credit card information to buy what ever they want without you finding out until you get the bill.
Carbon fiber solves this issue because it naturally blocks those scanners from getting at your credit card info. When your cards are in a carbon fiber wallet, you don’t need to worry about them getting used to buy a thief a single thing!
5) Withstands Extreme Conditions
Carbon fiber is one of the toughest materials out there. It’s used to make airplane wings as well as components for motor vehicles. These two examples are products that cannot fail, as the structural integrity of each example is paramount to public safety.
Planes and cars are exposed to the elements all the time. From scorching heat to blistering cold. They’re exposed to times when the weather hasn’t produced a single drop of moisture in weeks to heavy rain mixed with hail. And time after time, they stand up strong against the elements!
With that in mind, you can feel confident that carbon fiber wallets are able to stand up to the same conditions. While you may not expose it to all of those conditions every day, the peace of mind that you’ll have from owning a wallet that will continue to be useful years into the future is well worth the investment.
As you can see, the only option to seriously consider for your next wallet is a carbon fiber wallet. Their lightweight construction makes them easy to carry wherever you go while not sacrificing on the durability of it. Your credit cards and IDs will remain safe as carbon fiber prevents would be thieves from scanning your information with RFID readers. And, once you invest in a carbon fiber wallet, it’s likely the last wallet you’ll ever buy, which means you’ll save a bunch of money over time!
Upgrade your wallet to the Axwell Forged Carbon Fiber Wallet. Its sleek design makes it aesthetically pleasing while extremely tough with its carbon fiber construction. The RFID blocking plates are exchangeable, making the Axwell Forged Carbon Fiber Wallet easily customizable to your preferences. Do yourself a favor and pick one up today, you’ll be glad you did.
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